Pokemon Go became popular on the premise that it will make gamers go out and enjoy the outdoors. It used AR (augmented reality) tech to turn the real world into one that's filled with virtual pocket monsters that players need to catch "out in the wild." But this one player tried to go where few dare go - albeit with a technological compromise.
Here's how to fix the ongoing Incense bug in "Pokemon GO"
Using a technique called location spoofing, TikTok user and Pokemon Go player SpooferX played the game at the very spot where the Titanic sank. Yes, you read that right. As reported by GameRant, the aforementioned player didn't exactly find anything there (it is in the middle of the ocean, after all). But to get something, SpooferX used an incense to create a wild encounter, which gave them the fire/type Pokemon called Numel.
Here's the TikTok video itself, which has already earned almost 170k likes and over 1,000 comments at the time of this writing:
@spoofer_x Pokemon go where the titanic sank #PerfectPartner #pogo #ITriedItIPrimedIt #pokemongo #pokemongospoofing #spooferx #xyzbca #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound - SpooferX
As you can see there, SpooferX inputted the exact coordinates of the Titanic's sinking spot: 14.5994° South, 28.6731° West, hundreds of miles off the coast of Canada's Prince Edward Island. The spot itself isn't exactly the weird thing about this story, but the fact that the Pokemon that the incense spawned wasn't even a water type. But perhaps that's what you get from teleporting yourself into the middle of nowhere.
Either way, Pokemon Go spoofing is actually a form of cheating in this kind of game. It was designed to entice players to go out into the world, after all, and specific locations will harbor more exotic Pokemon. Anybody who doesn't spoof will obviously be left in the dust. As such, Niantic Support confirms that location spoofing is a behavior that violates the game's terms of service and trainer guidelines.
Pokemon Go spoofing will lead to a ban if you incur three strikes in general. But to some offenders who are particularly stubborn, they can get banned immediately without prior warning.
Read also: How To Become Better At Elden Ring (Aka How To Git Gud)
Does Pokemon Go Spoofing Actually Get People Banned?
Cheating in video games, as bad as it really is, is normal. There's really no way around it. Still, some cheaters will get through the cracks and never seem to be punished even if they've incurred multiple infractions. In the case of Niantic's AR Pokemon game, it's the same thing.
In a Reddit post on the Pokemon Go subreddit called The Silph Road, users revealed that Niantic does ban several, but they're "doing too little" to completely stop it. Some were even saying that the devs are "unsure" when it comes to handling false positives.
Granted, the post was made four years ago so things have changed since. According to YouTuber The Trainer Club, Niantic has actually been issuing ban waves during the last few years, with 4-5 ban waves in summer 2021 alone. Niantic has also been implementing new technologies to find out who spoofers are, so they can be penalized for their behavior.
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