Niantic has reversed some Pokemon Go player bans, which permanently divorced gamers from the title if they made use of ‘illegal’ third party services.
Earlier this month we reported that Niantic had begun issuing permanent player bans which targeted those who had made use of ‘illegal’ third party services to get a step ahead in the game.
Now, only a few weeks later, the company has reversed course and has repealed player bans which divorced ‘cheating’ gamers from the title.
Read: Pokemon Go crashes hard; 10 million players leave the game behind
Bans were issued to gamers who made use of add-on maps which show Pokemon locations, emulators which enabled the game to be played on a laptop or PC, and bots which play the game on their own accord.
Niantic’s CEO John Hanke has stated that many bans are now being reversed in cases where players had made use of add-on maps to facilitate easier Pokemon hunting.
In an official blog post, Hanke stated that “Some players may not have realised that some add-on map apps do more than just show you nearby Pokémon. Each end-user app can be used as a collection tool by the app creator, invisibly collecting and forwarding data to the app creator with or without the knowledge of the end user. These apps can have an effect similar to DDoS attacks on our servers.”
“Add-on maps which scrape data from our servers still violate our Terms of Service and use of them may still result in an account ban going forward,” Hanke added.
That means we’re not likely to see another service such as Pokevision for good while; however, players can still resort to using PokeMapper – a crowd-sourced map of Pokemon hotspots around the globe.
Read: Here‘s how to find Pokemon in South Africa with Pokemon Go
What are your thoughts on Niantic’s decision to reverse early Pokemon Go player bans? Be sure to share your opinion in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
