Last month, an official Pokémon Wi-Fi tournament allowed Pocket Monster players from all over the world a chance to compete. For a large number, it was a chance to cheat.
According to The Pokémon Company, the 2013 Global Showdown saw a whopping 1558 cheaters. These players didn’t use regular in-game Pokémon or special rare Pokémon given out at events.
Rather, they used smartphone apps that allow players to “build” and edit Pokémon to their own liking, instead of investing time playing the game and training their Pocket Monsters. Using an app, these Pocket Monsters are created on a smartphone and then uploaded to the players’ Nintendo handheld.
Before the tournament, players had to register the Pokémon they planned to use in a “battle box”. After the tournament was over, The Pokémon Company went back through the battle boxes and, thus, discovered a large number of these unfairly created Pocket Monsters. Here’s the breakdown of the number of cheaters The Pokémon Company discovered in each division:
Junior Division: 68 players
Senior Division: 335 players
Master Division: 1,155 players.
The Junior Division is for players born in 2002 or later, the Senior Division is for players born between 1998 and 2001, and the Master Division is for players born in 1997 or prior. Cheating became increasingly prevalent among older entrants. Imagine that!
The number isn’t that bad when you consider how there are three million players on the Pocket Monster Global Link. In its official statement, however, The Pokémon Company didn’t disclose how many players participated in this online tournament. That being said, a thousand cheaters is still a thousand cheaters.
These players will not be included in the tournament’s rankings. The Pokémon Company added that it would do all it can to stamp out unfair Pokémon practices. The Pokémon Company might have nabbed these 1,558 cheaters, but there are still more out there. Gotta catch ’em all.
2013 Global Showdownのランキング発表について [Pokemon]
Photo: Tumblr
Comments
11 responses to “So Many Pokémon Cheaters Entered Online Tournament”
Is tournament Pokemon about skill or about how much spare time you have? If the “cheaters” used Pokemon with achievable abilities and stats then I don’t see an issue. If they wanted to fix this, either change the meta to be a whole lot easier to play and know what you’re doing or make it so you can construct your Pokemon with desired numbers
I was thinking the same thing, back in the day we would use a gamegenie to modify pokemon to specific levels but within the limits of thier established stats and abilities.
Made for better battles.
I dont understand the problem with doing it this way, saved hundreds of hours and allows you to use legit pokemon to the fullest.
You REALLY don’t see the issue with cheating like this? REALLY? If you had entered and lost to someone who had done this when you hadn’t, I can pretty much guarantee you’d be more than a little upset over it.
I would have assumed if they’re using Pokemon with reasonable stats that they’d go unnoticed.
The system that picks up cheaters probably works on the theory of unattainable stats. How else would they know?
Edited Pokemon leave traces if you don’t go through a lot of extra steps, well that was back when you used save edits on the flashcards, even then they may show indicators. If they were using unobtainable stats and abilities it would a bit obvious
Name trash bytes, PIDs, IVs, move sets, stats & a whole bunch of other things determine the legitimacy of Pokemon. It’s hard to pass hack checks if you hack.
This is going to be really off tangent…
But is it “spare time” or “training”?
It’s really easy to say “oh but if it’s still acheivable then it won’t matter will it”. Thats like saying people who train for *anything* is a sucker when he could have taken short cuts… I mean if I can code an aimbot to be at the same level as a person with “realistic” accuracy or macros on an RTS thats comparable to my highest APM that would be “saving time” right?
“There are only two kinds of [Pokémon Trainers] in this world: Honest men and dishonest men. …Any man who says the world owes him a living is dishonest. The same [Arceus] that made you and me made this earth. And He planned it so that it would yield every single thing that the people on it need. But He was careful to plan it so that it would only yield up its wealth in exchange for the labor of man. Any man who tries to share in that wealth without contributing the work of his brain or his hands is dishonest.”
― Ralph Moody (edited for Pokémon relevance)
Yeah I’ve explored all this and as Piat said, there is a bit of an issue. Most older people don’t have all the time to drain in to achieve perfect IV Pokemon, EV train (while not hard at all), and all the breeding required to get the ‘best’ Pokemon.
Older players who understood all of these things new that to be any bit competitive they needed the best they could, obviously because other people would do it too. The statistics I’d like to see is how many of the cheaters caught, were their Pokemon ‘legit’ or ‘illegitimate’.
Again end game, seems a lot about ‘obtaining the best possible stats’ rather than just raw skill; which yes does take a part of it.
I do hope at least it’s fixed in the next series, make competitive a whole lot more fun than grind away, which most don’t have time for.
I pumped my Pokemon full of HP UP, Calcium, Iron, Protein, Zinc, Carbos and AOD-9604. Then I’m ambushed by The Pokemon Company and they charged me for cheating and ban me from the finals because apparently AOD-9604 is a banned substance!!!
The story image represents my exact feels when I enter online battles in pokemon to find myself versing a bunch of hacked shiny legendaries with most likely max EV’s/IV’s/best nature/movepool and ability vs my fave regular poke’s randomly picked out of a straw hat IV’s/Max EV’s/good enough nature, but I stopped playing online after Black didn’t even touch Black 2’s online because I knew it was going to be the same.
It’s always ‘cheating’ to someone who’s slugged it out, joylessly grinding the shit out of a game, when they speak about someone who’s found a faster way.
Pretty much, I don’t know why they feel so cheated, training a perfect Pokemon legit is an achievement of its own, I have tried a few times and it is hard. I’ve also hacked my save to give me a good combo and even hacking is hardly a ticket to winning
“Hey, Ling Ling…”
Just got the app today. But not to cheat.
My little lost al his lvl 100s due to a bad game card, luckly he wrote all the stats and details down 😀