'Pokemon Go' cheats, hacks news 2016: Player gets cheating ban after trying to amass a million XP in 1 day

Niantic Labs has been cracking down "Pokemon Go" cheaters and hackers in recent days in an effort to level the playing field. Tech-savvy players seem to have discovered ingenious ways to circumvent the rules and cheat their way through the game. Moreover, the proliferation of third-party tracking apps has also been a constant headache for the developer of the hyper-popular augmented reality game. To deal with this plethora of challenges, the former Google startup has taken a firm stance and vows to harshly implement bans on unrepentant cheating players.

While some prefer the convenience of using "Pokemon Go" cheats, some diehard players have been working hard to accomplish unbelievable feats such as amassing a million experience points in 24 hours. One such person was true blue "Pokemon Go" fan Jimmy Derocher who recently eyed on achieving huge game milestones for the sake of the challenge itself and earn the ultimate bragging rights for the record-breaking achievement.

For the uninitiated, accruing XP points is pretty exhausting and a time-consuming endeavor. On average, Pokestops only give 50 XP. Capturing virtual creatures during a "Pokemon Go" hunt gives an additional 100 XP. Most players would probably regard Derocher's ambitious pursuit with a hint of cheating suspicion. Undeterred, a highly determined Derocher set out to prove that he can do it. Previously, he accrued a million XP in one weekend. In a Reddit post, he discussed his planned daring attempt to break his two-day record in a single day.

The "Pokemon Go" player even declared on Facebook that he will livestream his 24-hour journey to collect million XP on Twitch and dispel doubts of cheating. Derocher also mentioned raising money through donation app Charity Miles. Unfortunately, Niantic detected such an unusual activity and soft-banned him after amassing 600, 000 XP in just 13 hours.

"Niantic Labs recently implemented an anti-botting policy becoming more well-known to players as a 'soft-ban.' More or less, the policy is a 24-hour 'cheating prevention' tool which stops you from getting more XP than should be possible," Derocher explained per Kotaku report.

He added, "I'm a bit of a hardcore gamer and I play somewhat efficiently, but the point is that I shouldn't be hitting a 24 hr ban limit in just over half that time."

Just before he got a 24-hour temporary ban, Derocher managed to garner $50-60 for charity.