Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns

Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns

For the last couple of days, the Pokemon GO community has erupted over a new security measure that allegedly hides rare monster spawns from cheaters.

By now you’ve probably heard about the myriad of third-party applications that Pokemon GO players use, such as tracking maps that tell people what creatures appear in a given area. While Niantic considers this cheating, within hardcore communities, playing Pokemon GO with “mappers” is considered an optimal and enjoyable way to play.

All the same, Pokemon Go Hub reports that some people using these services have been flagged by Niantic, sometimes getting a warning like so:

Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns
Image via Reddit user kdiddy733

Image via Reddit user kdiddy733

Players are calling this a “shadowban,” meaning that they can be in the same exact area as other players, but will only be able to view common spawns, such as Rattata and Pidgey, rather than rare and coveted ones. On Reddit, players have started to compile a list of monsters shadowbanned accounts can no longer see.

Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns
Image via Pokemon Go Hub

Image via Pokemon Go Hub

Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns
Image via Hong Jie Soh‎

Image via Hong Jie Soh

Niantic, the makers of the game, have not addressed this publicly, neither confirming it nor shooting it down. We reached out to Niantic to ask about the so-called shadowban, but they have not yet responded to our requests for comment.

Despite lack of official confirmation, Pokemon GO communities are convinced shadowbans are taking place. Pokemon Go experts from The Silph Road, for example, are reporting this anti-cheat’s supposed existence, stating “Some accounts suddenly stopped finding Pokemon at certain known spawnpoints. It turned out that they were incapable of seeing anything more than very common species.”

Services that allow players to track rare monster spawns are currently polling their users to see if their accounts have been “blinded” by this change. Some mapping services, which rely on bots to gather data, are no longer working as intended, or are reporting outages. Some trackers are also starting to find workarounds for inaccurate scans due to, in their words, “changes made by Niantic.”

Around the web and on social media, various players are seemingly confirming the existence of this anti-cheat method, with large public Pokemon Go communities, Reddits, and Tweets full of comments like:

“What the hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Niantic treat my account as a BOT. I cannot see any rare pokemons.”

“That answers my question about why my maps are blank.”

“That new…nothings rare come out from nearby sighthing for me…”

“I get nothing on the maps now.”

“My account appears to have been shadowbanned. I noticed because my brother and I were playing together this morning, and I was missing half of the spawns (the good ones).”

“Was at the park today and a dude in the crowd couldn’t see the Dratini everyone else could because he used an IV checker that logged into his account.”

“Anyone chasing the larvitars on discord and noticing they’re not always popping up on everyone’s accounts?”

“idk what flagged my account, but I went out to play with my fiance and all the commons popped up for me but it wouldn’t load the onix shuckle or kabuto she found right next to me.”

Within these comments, multiple users claim that they have been falsely flagged as cheaters, but we cannot verify if these players have used a third-party app or not. Additionally, some players who confess to cheating claim that they have not been dinged by the latest changes, while others argue that using mapping services should not be considered cheating in the first place. Some players, for example, use maps because they lead busy lives, or live in rural areas.

While Niantic’s war against mapping services and cheaters goes back since the release of the game, it’s also worth noting that the developers recently teased the inclusion of legendaries this summer. It would make sense for Pokemon GO to beef up its blockade against cheaters, thereby preventing players from gaming their way to the rarest monsters.


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


9 responses to “Pokemon GO ‘Cheaters’ Say Niantic Is Punishing Them By Hiding Rare Monster Spawns”