I'm pretty sure developers at Niantic are account selling spoofers
So I'm trying to get back into this game after a few months and as I'm trying to take a local gym I have one, maybe multiple spoofers in my area that fill up a gym and feed them berries making the gym scene literally unplayable unless I get lucky and catch the spoofers sleeping at an odd hour.
Why would naintic allow this to happen to a player that is trying to get back into the game and previously used to spend a lot of money in the shops?
It's because niantic is clearly making money off spoofing and it's not those spoofers buying things in the shops either. Niantic developers are the biggest culprits in creating side accounts and selling them.
I've seen this multiple times in a few other mmo's over the years and it always comes down to the same thing - if there's people making money off cheating and there's no rush to deal with them - odds are the people in charge are biggest culprits behind the scenes.
Something very fishy is going on with Niantic.... calling it now. Either they are very shady or they are one of the most incompetent companies I've ever seen and I just don't believe the 2nd option.
Answers
it doesn't mean it's Niantic. It's some spoofer who has 1000000000 golden razz berries cuz he takes gyms across the world AND sits at home and pays for the gold coins or hacks them into his game for unlimited raid passes. If Niantic was supportive of spoofers, why would they be against trackers? Tons of legitimate players use those and the tracker in Pokemon Go doesnt work all the time, and the wild pokemon sightings is just hit and miss most the time especially if you see something rare you actually want .
Yes, but they're not "selling accounts" they're letting them stay up, and feigning lack of proof as their excuse. If they wanted to crack down on spoofers they could but they make money off of their game with them. that's why theres like 3 types of soft bans Niantic gives besides perma bans to spoofers.
How do you know they are not selling accounts? Thats the best way for them to make money off of spoofing. I don't believe your average spoofer spends money on this game. They only put off players like me who did spend money on this game. Niantic being the biggest account brokers is the only thing that makes sense besides them being horrible incompetent.
They do not need to do that, and it would just be drops in the bucket for Niantic.
If they done something like that and got busted, the bad press would have been immense.
There are certainly no lack of people trying to make money on this game (besides Niantic). Just look at Ebay and all the tracker services.
However, I have a feeling that Niantic do not want to make a massive crackdown on bots. That certainly would have hurt the "player statistics" a LOT!
All those tracker services and private bot nets must amount to much more than the actual active human player base.
They aren't doing it on a company decision level, it's individuals within the developing team seeing they can make money on side. Again, I've seen this in other mmo's, it's a human nature thing.....
Player stastics mean nothing in the face on declining revenue. Their cheaters are putting off legit paying players - Niantic decision makers are making money some other way.
Why? It's not that many $ per account, looking at ebay prices. Compared to a company that at less than 100 employers got more than 1 billion $ in less than a year. The employers have probably got a slight share of that.
There are thousands of others who try their best to get their share of money out of a popular game. Even in my small town there are players bragging about selling bot accounts on eBay, you certainly do not need conspiracy theories about Niantic. When that is said, as a game developer they certainly need to increase their competence in many areas :-)
Player statistics is everything. If you have a huge base then big companies like Starbucks and others are much more likely to sponsor game features, and hench increase revenue. If the player base shows a rapid drop then Niantic will be regarded as not being able to keep a game alive and kicking for more than a short period. Investors want high, and stable, return of their money.
You have no idea what kind of effort level they are putting in to whatever pay out they are getting. One fact we do know is that it is worth it to some people because there are accounts available online for sale. The market exists because some seller is making money. Why not Niantic developers?
These guys don't own Niantic or Pokémon. They don't make money off subscription #s. Most of them probably don't make that much money and could use some form of supplementation.
They are the developers. They made the game, they know how to break it too. They know the major exploits. Which ones to use and not to use.
As long as they don't use their main phones, it's going to be forever untraceable.
Again I've seen this in other mmo's. Guides and moderators, even ones that are highly regarded by the community almost always get caught with their hand in the cookie jar if it looks like they can do it with no one seeing.
You think the cheating aspect is capitalism?
I would think the capitalism aspect is prioritizing players like me who don't spoof and actually used to spend money.
That's why I think there's something rotten at Niantic.
You don't prioritize cheaters who are ruining the game for legit players who are paying money unless you have some other sort of a motive behind the scenes.
A.) Use a work around for unlimited poke coins. Basically pay for them with money that doesnt exist.
B.) sit at home and pay probably much more than a lot of players walking/driving around because they have nothing to do at all with their time and most likely have disposable income from family
the solution to defeat Spoofers is to have a big team with you when you hunt/defeat gyms/ go do raid bosses. If you have a team of even 3-5 high level people you should be fine. Annoying but its true (I usually play by myself or with my low leveld little bros so I feel your pain when we've been working at agym for like an hour fighting against network errors mostly and the spoofer drops the golden razz. Luckily i have ateam of Machamps built for all Snorlax/Blissey/TTar)
You wrote "Either they are very shady or they are one of the most incompetent companies I've ever seen and I just don't believe the 2nd option"... I am going to say they are both hahaha. This gym system is a complete joke and so time consuming that annoy players that some of them end up paying for coins. How's that for increasing profit margin for next fiscal year? Wahaha
I really think the latter, they are very incompetent as we have seen with nearly every update, event release, lack of communication, and poor decision making.
It doesn't make sense for them to sell accounts because it would be just a drop in the bucket relative to their profits and there is risk in doing that.
They are, however, turning a blind eye to spoofing and anyone that is giving them money is also supporting spoofers.
