What happens when you get caught cheating in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite?

What happens when you get caught cheating in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite?

Best answer: If you get caught cheating in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the game creator can ban your email address and delete your account. And the company has gotten very good at catching cheaters.Game Credit Cards: iTunes Gift Card ($25 at Amazon)Battery Backup: Anker PowerCore 20100 ($50 at Amazon)

Cheating in Wizards Unite is a bad plan

As much fun as Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is, the game isn't always super easy to play. You have to be out in the real world to enjoy most of the experience, often at different times of the day. And with reports that rural areas don't have a lot of options for gameplay, that can be a challenge. Some folks try to solve for this by using location cheating apps, which trick the game into thinking you are in a different location to play the game. In some cases, programmers have created entire programs to actually play these kinds of games while you sleep, which is obviously not cool.

How big a deal is this? Well, according to the Niantic Terms of Service you agree to when signing up to play any of its games, a pretty big deal. Here's what it says, word for word:

3 Use of the Services3.1 CheatingNiantic prohibits cheating, and we constantly take steps to improve our anti-cheat measures. Cheating includes any action that attempts to or actually alters or interferes with the normal behavior or rules of a Service. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, any of the following behavior, on your own behalf or on behalf of others:Accessing Services in an unauthorized manner (including using modified or unofficial third party software); Playing with multiple accounts for the same Service; Sharing accounts; Using any techniques to alter or falsify a device's location (for example through GPS spoofing); and/or Selling or trading accounts.Apps may not work on devices that Niantic detects or reasonably suspects to be cheating, and Niantic will not provide support to players who attempt to cheat. You agree that Niantic may employ any lawful mechanisms to detect and respond to cheating, fraud, and other behavior prohibited under these Terms, including checking your device for the existence of exploits or hacking and/or unauthorized software. Please see the Guidelines and our Privacy Policy for more information.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, for Ingress Prime and Pokemon Go players, Niantic has taken steps to ensure the game is as fair as possible for everyone. There are services within Niantic dedicated to detecting cheaters, and those who are discovered and found guilty have had their accounts deleted and their email addresses banned from playing the game. This means even if you wanted to try playing legitimately, you would need a whole new email address to get started.

Bottom line: Just play the game, don't try to cheat. It's not at all worth it, and the chances of your getting caught are extremely high.

Russell Holly

Russell is a Contributing Editor at iMore. He's a passionate futurist whose trusty iPad mini is never far from reach. You can usually find him chasing the next tech trend, much to the pain of his wallet. Reach out on Twitter!