Niantic, the studio behind augmented reality mobile games Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, i Login, would have punished more than 5 million cheaters since early 2020, with more than one million players receiving permanent bans worldwide three games.
“We are committed to ensuring fair play throughout our gaming portfolio,” Niantic’s said blog post reads. “Every day new forms of cheating or counterfeiting tools are made available on the Internet and we are constantly working to combat these cheats and focus on improving our detection and application, as they do not take place in our games.”
Niantic also said that 90% of players who received a warning immediately stopped cheating, a figure the company considers “quite encouraging” as it tries to differentiate between the occasional disregard for its rules and attempts. more flagrant ”to gain control over developers.
All in all, it’s worth noting that “cheating” on versions of Niantic generally amounts to falsifying the location with third-party programs to trick the game into believing you’re walking around the city and not, you know, sitting at your computer. This type of behavior rarely ruins the experience of other users, but it affects the revenue of Niantic, the greatest sin of capitalism.
Pokémon Go has done more than $ 4 billion for Niantic since its launch in 2016. At least $ 1 billion came in 2020 alone.