Niantic Takes Away Rare Spawns To Punish Pokemon Go Cheaters

Nobody likes cheaters, especially videogame developers.

Not long after Pokemon Go's release Niantic started working on ways to battle cheaters on its popular videogaming app, enforcing penalties and providing a safety night to block cheaters from hacking into the game.

Now, with the game on its new Adventure Week, Niantic is trying out a new method to fight against third party trackers and other cheaters. According to reports on the Pokemon Go Hub (via Comicbook), the developer has been flagging "malicious" Pokemon Go accounts and preventing them from seeing rare Pokemon spawning. Once flagged, gamers will no longer be able to find rare Pokemon and settle for common catches like Rattata and Pidgey.

Third party trackers often use bot accounts to obtain location data on certain Pokemon and then pass it along to others using their tracking system. Niantic's method of punishing these individuals messes up with the tracking system, preventing hackers from snatching away rare Pokemon without effort.

While this is certainly very interesting news, gamers are still not sure whether Niantic is enforcing this method on other "cheaters" like players with multiple accounts and GPS spoofers. There's also no certainty whether the new method is effective. We'll have to wait and see whether Niantic's move pays off.

Read: Pokemon Go's Adventure Week Starts Off With A Swarm Of Pseudo-Legendary Pokemon