Pokemon GO Adds New Anti-Cheating Measure that Makes Pokemon Act Erratically

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Pokemon GO Adds New Anti-Cheating Measure that Makes Pokemon Act Erratically

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1415/1415356.jpgIf you're using third-party services to "circumvent normal gameplay" in Pokemon GO, you might find that your Pokemon don't behave exactly as you'd expect.

There's a new anti-cheat measure coming to Pokemon GO. It was announced in a thread on Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/68ny03/niantic_support_accounts_have_officially_joined/] by a verified Niantic support account, and it will affect anyone using "third-party services that circumvent normal gameplay."

The post says,

"With the announcement of Raid Battles and the new battle features, we are staying true on our commitment to ensuring that Pokemon GO continues to be a fun and fair experience for all Trainers. Starting today, Pokemon caught using third-party services that circumvent normal gameplay will appear marked with a slash in the inventory and may not behave as expected. We are humbled by the excitement for all the new features we announced yesterday. This is one small part of our continued commitment to maintaining the integrity of our community and delivering an amazing Pokemon GO experience."

There's no specific word on which "third-party services" might trigger this new measure, or what having Pokemon that "may not behave as expected" will entail. That said, it sounds similar to what happens when you acquire a Pokemon in the main games that is too high for you to control.




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[Fiz_The_Toaster]

You can do that?

I mean, I'm not totally surprised since people will use cheats whenever they want, but I didn't think people cared THAT much about Pokemon GO to do that.

That's a new one.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Just what do these third party services do that makes this necessary?

 

[Charli]

Just what do these third party services do that makes this necessary?

People use GPS spoofing to essentially have it play the game for them. You gain the most from hatching eggs by walking and gps spoofing will walk for you if you let it earning you tons more exp and candies than anyone who is playing legitimately. The game is currently stuffed with gyms conquered by people who are super high level with Gyarados's and Dragonites in like 50 gyms at a time on top of that owning gyms gets you the currency to collect to get more efficient at the game and those not cheating cannot possibly hope to challenge those gyms fairly. Especially if you're like me and only have one gym in your town so cannot get 1000's of currency like those living in more populated areas.

So they've shut down the gyms for now until the next update.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Just what do these third party services do that makes this necessary?

Usually they are finding ways to dodge the in game store whilst also skipping the grind.

It's quite interesting how game hacking has evolved in the last five years, it's gone from trying to gain an unfair advantage in gameplay to almost exclusively targeting in game items, economies and storefronts.

I find it very telling that so many players are willing to pay subscriptions (no really) to hack sites because it's cheaper and more convenient than playing the game. It's fraud (obviously) but you think a situation where games are so aggressively monetised that players are seeking out scheisters and giving them money to play the game they already paid for once would trigger some degree of introspection from developers and publishers.

If nothing else they are missing a business opportunity. Not so much in this case, but with the GTA situation those hackers could be killed off by offering a $15-month premium mode that unlocks everything and gives out a hefty-ish in game cash sum a month. There is clearly a market for it, one big enough to make Take 2's lawyers take notice. It worked for Blizzard to mostly get rid of Gold farmers too.

I expect this whole mess to get both much more widespread and worse before it gets better.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Just what do these third party services do that makes this necessary?

People use GPS spoofing to essentially have it play the game for them. You gain the most from hatching eggs by walking and gps spoofing will walk for you if you let it earning you tons more exp and candies than anyone who is playing legitimately. The game is currently stuffed with gyms conquered by people who are super high level with Gyarados's and Dragonites in like 50 gyms at a time on top of that owning gyms gets you the currency to collect to get more efficient at the game and those not cheating cannot possibly hope to challenge those gyms fairly. Especially if you're like me and only have one gym in your town so cannot get 1000's of currency like those living in more populated areas.

So they've shut down the gyms for now until the next update.

I wondered why those leading the Gyms seemed to have CPs in the thousands. I figured it was just because they were more dedicated than I am.

Just what do these third party services do that makes this necessary?

Usually they are finding ways to dodge the in game store whilst also skipping the grind.

It's quite interesting how game hacking has evolved in the last five years, it's gone from trying to gain an unfair advantage in gameplay to almost exclusively targeting in game items, economies and storefronts.

I find it very telling that so many players are willing to pay subscriptions (no really) to hack sites because it's cheaper and more convenient than playing the game. It's fraud (obviously) but you think a situation where games are so aggressively monetised that players are seeking out scheisters and giving them money to play the game they already paid for once would trigger some degree of introspection from developers and publishers.

If nothing else they are missing a business opportunity. Not so much in this case, but with the GTA situation those hackers could be killed off by offering a $15-month premium mode that unlocks everything and gives out a hefty-ish in game cash sum a month. There is clearly a market for it, one big enough to make Take 2's lawyers take notice. It worked for Blizzard to mostly get rid of Gold farmers too.

I expect this whole mess to get both much more widespread and worse before it gets better.

Introspection? Yeah like that would ever happen. But really, that exists? Paying third parties in order to cheat at a game. That's new to me.

 

[fix-the-spade]

But really, that exists? Paying third parties in order to cheat at a game. That's new to me.

Yes it's really a thing, Blizzard recently sued one of the bigger 'services' for $8.6million and won. Pretty much any persistent online game will have someone hawking paid hacks if you go looking for them, I expect it will only become more and more common as games push the in game store more and more aggressively.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

But really, that exists? Paying third parties in order to cheat at a game. That's new to me.

Yes it's really a thing, Blizzard recently sued one of the bigger 'services' for $8.6million and won. Pretty much any persistent online game will have someone hawking paid hacks if you go looking for them, I expect it will only become more and more common as games push the in game store more and more aggressively.

Now that I think of it, that does sound familiar. I'm pretty sure I've heard of the gold farming racket before. Like you said it should tell these companies something when their consumers are willing to give their money to illegitimate third parties instead of them. Like what are these third parties doing that makes them more appealing? Like maybe these big publishers could integrate those elements into the main game to make it more appealing? Well like I said introspection is not their strong suit.

 

[Fensfield]

Now that I think of it, that does sound familiar. I'm pretty sure I've heard of the gold farming racket before. Like you said it should tell these companies something when their consumers are willing to give their money to illegitimate third parties instead of them. Like what are these third parties doing that makes them more appealing? Like maybe these big publishers could integrate those elements into the main game to make it more appealing? Well like I said introspection is not their strong suit.

Eeh watch out, the one thing these people have over an introspective developer integrating these elements into their product, is no fanbase ready to lynch them for implementing a Pay-to-Win model.

No I think fix-the-spade was more on the money with

...a situation where games are so aggressively monetised that players are seeking out scheisters and giving them money to play the game they already paid for...

It's not a question of ways to monetise so much as it is sacrificing an engaging game in favour of being able to monetise in the first place. Someday, I desperately hope, there'll come along an online game that provides such a worthwhile experience that it revives the subscription model to its former glory, or something like. After all, in a way at least a part of all this evolved from MMO's making themselves increasingly tedious and unnecessarily drawn out in order to stretch the amount of time they took to 'complete' and thus get more subscriptions.

So yeah I think the 'real' answer is a game that's just engaging in the long term and that's that; no tricks to drag out the time it takes to achieve things, no shunting content into one-off purchases .. but who knows if/when that'll happen.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Now that I think of it, that does sound familiar. I'm pretty sure I've heard of the gold farming racket before. Like you said it should tell these companies something when their consumers are willing to give their money to illegitimate third parties instead of them. Like what are these third parties doing that makes them more appealing? Like maybe these big publishers could integrate those elements into the main game to make it more appealing? Well like I said introspection is not their strong suit.

Eeh watch out, the one thing these people have over an introspective developer integrating these elements into their product, is no fanbase ready to lynch them for implementing a Pay-to-Win model.

No I think fix-the-spade was more on the money with

...a situation where games are so aggressively monetised that players are seeking out scheisters and giving them money to play the game they already paid for...

It's not a question of ways to monetise so much as it is sacrificing an engaging game in favour of being able to monetise in the first place. Someday, I desperately hope, there'll come along an online game that provides such a worthwhile experience that it revives the subscription model to its former glory, or something like. After all, in a way at least a part of all this evolved from MMO's making themselves increasingly tedious and unnecessarily drawn out in order to stretch the amount of time they took to 'complete' and thus get more subscriptions.

So yeah I think the 'real' answer is a game that's just engaging in the long term and that's that; no tricks to drag out the time it takes to achieve things, no shunting content into one-off purchases .. but who knows if/when that'll happen.

Well one way or another they need to look at what's driving their consumers to give their money to illegitimate 3rd parties instead of them.