Online games cheaters are a fact of life, so it is only natural that a game such as Pokémon Go which asks its players to move their asses to catch augmented reality Pokémon would have its fair share of cheaters.
Within a week of the game's launch, a large number of Pokémon Go players started using cheating tools such as GPS emulators that fool the game into believing that the player was at the right location to catch a Pokémon or that he has walked enough to hatch an egg without leaving his seat. Then there are third party Pokémon tracking apps which fall in a grey area.
Niantic has already stopped several third party tools but – quite naturally – this is not enough to curb cheaters. Now, the company is toughening up the game's terms of service so that cheaters would be banned for life.
"Falsifying your location, using emulators, modified or unofficial software and/or accessing Pokémon GO clients or backends in an unauthorized manner including through the use of third party software."
Banned cheaters will have a single chance to appeal though it is unlikely that Niantic will reverse its decisions.