Bans for spoofers in Pokémon GO are now even permanent. Niantic is ramping up its fight against cheaters and sending out a wave of Pokémon GO bans.
What is spoofing? Spoofing in Pokémon GO is a topic that has various opinions. It is a type of cheating where players can change their location with the help of software without moving their bodies.
For example, a trainer could live in the last village of Bielefeld but move around in the game in Los Angeles, catching monsters there.
This helps trainers in rural areas where there are no stops or gyms. However, it clearly interferes with the gameplay of Pokémon GO and violates the rules. The developers do not want this and are now demonstrating their unwillingness very clearly by throwing the cheaters out of the game – and this time probably for good.
PokéGo++ has hit hard
Spoofers with iOS devices often resorted to the PokéGO++ application to fake a location in Pokémon GO. But now there are evidently major problems. Many bans have hit, permanently removing players from Pokémon GO.
According to a statement from a moderator of the PokéGo++ subreddit, this is not due to poor coding, but a new step from Niantic. According to his assessment, they already knew last year exactly which players were spoofing.
Recently, the Pokémon GO developers from Niantic updated the security measures. This resulted in PokeGo++ users having to take a forced break. It took only about 1.5 weeks for the spoofing app to slip through these measures and undermine Niantic’s efforts.
It seems likely that Niantic did not want to give any more chances and, as a result of the renewed breakthrough, banned the accounts of the spoofers.
Moreover, the Discord server of PokéGO++ has been deleted. According to statements from the Reddit moderator, this deletion occurred directly from Discord. The reasons are unknown.
We are talking about permabans
Since about Tuesday evening (04/17), complaints from trainers who can no longer access the game are piling up. In the past, spoofers often received only soft bans, which allowed the player to remain in the game but severely limited their functions.
Since the latest wave of bans, Niantic is no longer allowing players in and displays this error message, which in the past was only given to bot accounts (or players whose internet connection is disrupted).
Furthermore, some usernames of the banned accounts have become available again – which would be illogical with a temporary ban. Therefore, the community on Reddit is now assuming that the spoofers have also been permanently banned.
The project PokéGo++ has not been discontinued due to the bans. They seem to continue working on the app and aim to circumvent Niantic’s security measures in the future.
These permanent bans indicate how seriously Niantic takes spoofers. When Android users will be targeted is still unclear. We suspect that Niantic will also impose “order” there soon and ban spoofers.
We would like to emphasize at this point that spoofing in Pokémon GO is prohibited, and we do not advise any of you to use such services.
You want to catch Ditto in Pokémon GO? Currently, it can only be done with these species.
