Niantic, the developer of Pokémon GO, Ingress and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, has intensified its initiatives against cheating over the course of last year, and it proudly announced that it's booted five million accounts for cheating.
This befuddles me, really. Why cheat in Pokémon GO? The most enjoyable aspect of the game is the excitement of hatching an egg after accomplishing the ten kilometre requirement, or getting a boost to your Buddy's relationship by visiting a new Poké Stop, or sending a gift to a friend from a place you both know well. Yes, the pandemic has kept us indoors for a lot longer than any of us would have liked, but Niantic made a number of changes and accommodations to ensure that the experience of Pokémon GO wouldn't be hampered by this fact. Plus, the satisfaction of levelling up means so much more when you've got the blisters to prove it.
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"The motivation is related to self-enhancement and impression management," said psychologist Corey Butler on the reason why we've seen such a rise in cheating in games. "We all like to feel good about ourselves and look good in front of others.
Indeed, self-esteem is a powerful motivation in social psychology, right up there with other core human motives like food and safety." Well, Niantic says talk to the hand, buddy, because the face isn't listening. An announcement was published to the developer's website, and it was prefaced with an explanation. First and foremost, the company isn't one to offer frequent bulletins on its anti-cheat strategies as this could unintentionally offer insights with which cheaters could use to circumvent Niantic's efforts.
"We have made a commitment with all of our players towards promoting fair gameplay, preserving the integrity of our games and improving transparency with our players," said the developer. "Since the beginning of 2020, we've issued punishments to more than 5 million cheaters across Pokémon GO, Ingress and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, where over 20% of the punishments were permanent bans." Magnificent. However, Niantic isn't one to leap before they look. "More than 90% of users who received their first warning, stopped cheating afterwards," added the company. "This is quite encouraging for us, as we continue to find the right balance between punishing casual cheaters versus the more egregious ones."
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It also mentioned that player reports are a vital accompaniment to its other detection methods, and as a result, it can confidently say that it is "accurately detecting cheaters and minimising false positives." Here's hoping that this stunning statistic about cheaters in its games is a lot lower at the end of 2021.
Featured Image Credit: Niantic, The Pokemon Company