'Pokemon GO': Niantic Outlines Plan to Terminate Cheaters — What to Know

It seems like every popular game has its shares of cheaters, and Pokémon GO is no exception. From players who make multiple accounts to those who fake their GPS locations, cheating can ruin the fun for other people playing. Niantic is done playing around and implemented a new policy to stop these cheaters.

A new disciple policy page showed up on the Pokémon GO support page Thursday. Niantic created this three-strike guideline to try to curb the usage of third-party add-ons and GPS “spoofing,” which is faking a player’s location so they can appear to be in another location in the country or even in the world. Both cheaters and players, however, do not think it will have much effect.

Pokémon GO cheaters will receive three strikes if caught.

Strike 1: Warning

Players caught the first time cheating will receive a warning. For seven days, they will not encounter any rare Pokémon in the world and may not receive EX Raid Passes.

Strike 2: Suspension

Cheaters caught the second time will receive a 30 days suspension and won’t be able to access the game.

Strike 3: Termination

On the last strike, the player’s account will be banned from the game altogether.

Pokémon GO trainers on The Silph Road subreddit welcomed the new policy although some are skeptical on whether it will reduce the number of cheaters. As for the cheaters, the reaction is mixed on the Pokémon GO Spoofing subreddit. Some are willing to continue cheating until they get a second strike on their account while others are seeing the error of their ways.

Niantic’s new discipline policy for Pokémon GO is currently in effect as evident by the post on the Pokémon GO Spoofing subreddit confirming they already received “red warnings” in the past few days because of cheating. If effective, cheating should subside in the coming weeks.

With the new policy in effect, Pokémon GO cheaters likely had their last hurrah on Saturday during “Zapdos Day.”