Finding ways to play games better, faster and more efficiently is something gamers do all of the time. However, when it comes to Pokémon Go, you need to slip below the radar of the developer Niantic, as if you go too fast or play too well, you'll be considered a cheater and banned.
That's what happened in the case of Jimmy Derocher, who set himself a challenge to earn a million experience points in a single day. He did this with a lot of lucky eggs and a planned loop between ten lure equipped Pokéstops. He barely stopped to catch Pokémon, but did grab the odd Pidgey as time allowed and evolved as many as he could, to tactically raise his experience income to astronomical levels.
A lot of people watched online and a surprisingly large number showed up in person to cheer him on, but by the 13th hour, something terrible happened: his account was banned. He triggered anti-cheat measures by amassing some 600,000 experience in just a few hours and that meant he must obviously be cheating.
He wasn't, but that's how the game saw it.
"Niantic Labs recently implemented an anti-botting policy becoming more well-known to players as a ‘soft-ban’," he explained.
"More or less, the policy is a 24 hour ‘cheating prevention’ tool which stops you from getting more XP than should be possible."
No word yet from Niantic about whether the ban will be lifted, by Derocher was happy enough any way, as he managed to raise around $60 for charity from donations.
That's certainly a positive attitude.
