Pokémon GO players who are streaming to Twitch and found to be engaging in promotion of anything that could be considered cheating per Niantic’s terms of service, will receive a strike on their Twitch account following the discovery of such practices, according to a new blog post from Twitch this afternoon. The post attempts to clarify their stance on the game and how players have been interacting with hacks and tricks to bypass certain aspects of it while streaming the gameplay live for others to see. Naturally, Twitch doesn’t take kindly to cheaters, and has since made it known that streaming content on their site which violates the terms of service of any other products or brands violates the Twitch terms of service as well.
Niantic’s own TOS outlines cheating in Pokémon GO as using modified or unofficial software or playing with more than one account in the game. Of course, there are more ways to cheat and Niantic has covered those too. Niantic’s own CEO, John Hanke, is also well aware of cheaters and outlets which seek to promote or otherwise help players engage in cheating, stating that he is “not a fan of cheat sites.”
Not in direct relation to players cheating, Niantic also isn’t fond of third-party apps and services that can be used while playing the game, and has been rather diligent in blocking them as soon as possible. While Twitch does state that players will receive a strike on their account if they’re found to have been promoting any cheating practices while streaming and playing Pokémon GO, they also state that this applies to anything as of August 8th, which is today, so any content which has already been streamed would presumably not fall under these guidelines. Having said that, Twitch does recommend that players now pay very close attention to the content that they’re streaming going forward to make sure that it isn’t at risk of receiving a strike for a violation. In addition, Twitch doesn’t mention what would happen if streamers were caught promoting cheating multiple times, but it’s quite likely that this would simply result in more strikes and an eventual ban of the account.