The Pokemon Company warned players about doing this back in mid-April, but it seems more people have started using the trick than less. As a result, The Pokemon Company has decided to follow through with its threat of banning cheaters.
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As of right now, anyone deemed using this “loss prevention” glitch will lose the ability to participate in online Sword and Shield competitions. According to Pokemon Matome, the first wave of bans happened in Japan. These players have taken to Twitter to post images of the bans online, while other regions that have abused the exploit will likely start receiving bans themselves soon.
The ban also looks to be permanent, so there will be no chance of reversing it once it happened. In its first warning, The Pokemon Company claimed that temporary bans were on the table as well, but it doesn’t seem to have used this lighter punishment yet.
It also stated that players could be banned from all online Sword and Shield features. How exactly The Pokemon Company will dole out these punishments remains a mystery, however. It probably takes into account how many times a player has used the exploit since its discovery, so those with minimal use will likely receive a temporary ban. More moderate users will be permanently banned, and those that use it all the time will probably lose all online privileges.
To be clear, The Pokemon Company will only enact the ban if it catches multiple disconnects on the same Sword or Shield account, so anyone that disconnected because of circumstances outside of their control should be okay. Repeat offenders, however, may end up losing their online accounts:
Most gaming communities don’t mind players using cheats or exploits on their own time, and the Pokemon games themselves have infamous ties to things like Game Sharks and Action Replays. It’s when the cheating negatively affects the experience of other players that things start to become a problem and this loss-prevention exploit does just that. So the Pokemon Sword and Shield community will probably welcome these bans with open arms.
Pokemon Sword and Shield are available now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
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