Your favorite Pokémon GO streamer on Twitch may be playing no longer. Yesterday, Twitch finally announced their plan of action regarding streamers that rely on third-party cheats to play. As per the ToS for Twitch, streamers may not stream content that violates a third-party ToS or other user agreements.
Niantic’s Trainer guidelines state, “Methods of cheating, unfortunately, are limited only by cheaters’ imaginations, but include at a minimum the following: using modified or unofficial software; playing with multiple accounts (one account per player, please); sharing accounts; using tools or techniques to alter or falsify your location; or selling/trading accounts.” Starting today, August 8th, any streamer found to be using a 3rd party cheat such as a tracker or by spoofing their GPS location will be given a strike. Three strikes on their account and they can be permanently banned.
Streamers can play at home from their PC by spoofing their GPS location to somewhere like NYC or the Santa Monica Pier in California. Places like these are known to have generous spawn points for Pokémon and it could be argued that spoofing to these locations makes the stream that much more appealing to watch. The more interesting the stream, the more money popular Twitch streamers could be making as streams can be monetized through ads and donations. Reading through comments on Reddit, you can see that this ability to make money from cheating irked some Pokémon GO players.
Twitch is asking that streamers take the appropriate steps to ensure their content is not at risk.
