Niantic has been issuing punishments to cheaters across its library of games.
On their blog, developer Niantic revealed that they have punished over 5 million cheaters in Pokémon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite since the beginning of 2020. According to the developer, over 20% of those punishments were permanent bans. They also stated that more than 90% of those whom were caught cheating stopped after receiving their first warning, which Niantic finds encouraging as they continue to find the right balance between punishing casual cheaters versus more serious cheaters.
Niantic did state that they are investing into new and emerging technologies continuing to grow their team, and improving their detection and enforcement capabilities. Not only will they continue to act against those who break their terms of service, but they will be reinforcing their efforts in the coming weeks. They are constantly tweaking and improving their existing detection methods through player reports and other channels of feedback, ensuring that they are accurately detecting cheaters and minimizing false positives.
"We don't talk much about our anticheat efforts, partly because we don't want to provide cheaters with information that can help them understand our detection mechanisms better," Niantic stated. "But, rest assured our reluctance to share is not due to a lack of effort or intent from our side.
"We are committed to ensuring fair gameplay across our game portfolio. Every day newer forms of cheating or spoofing tools are made available on the internet, and we are continuously working to combat these cheaters and focus on improving our detection and enforcement; as they have no place in our games.
"Thank you all for your continued support and patience."
Pokémon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite are all available for mobile devices. Niantic did remind players that they do not support jailbroken or rooted devices.
