Is There A Way Around Pokemon Go's "Slash of Shame?"

Earlier this week, Pokemon Go announced a new anti-cheat method to punish players who had gained their Pokemon through illicit means. Any Pokemon caught or viewed through a third party system (such as a GPS spoofing app or an IV checking program) would now have a slash through it when viewed in the Pokemon screen. If a Pokemon had the "slash of shame" (as players have dubbed it,) these Pokemon wouldn't behave the way they would under normal circumstances.

Niantic declined to give any additional details about their anti-cheat system, but soon players started reporting the effects online. Initially, the only known effect was that players would not get candies if they transferred a branded Pokemon, which makes sense as they were obtained via an illegal method.

Interestingly, for about two hours, there was a way to circumnavigate the slash of shame. Evolving a branded Pokemon temporarily caused the slash to disappear, giving players a way around the anticheat measure. Players also reported that Niantic didn't brand spoofed Pokemon that they had evolved before the slash went into effect.

As Kotaku and other sites reported on the workaround, Niantic quickly shut the loophole down. Just two hours after a player on Reddit reported that evolving Pokemon would make the slash go away, another player reported that an error message would pop up whenever they tried to evolve a marked Pokemon.

For now, it looks like the slash of shame is here to stay. When Pokemon Go re-opens its gyms in the next few weeks, we'll probably see even more effects of the new anticheat methods.

More Pokemon: Players Worldwide Will Benefit from Pokemon Go Fest Rewards / Pokemon Go Update Spurs Speculation on New Shiny Pokemon / Pokemon Go Warns Cheaters That Their Pokemon Will Start "Misbehaving" / Pokemon Go Makes Huge Changes to Attack Bonuses / More Evidence of Legendary Pokemon Found in Pokemon Go's New Update / Pokemon Go Is Transforming Tons of PokeStops into Gyms / First Look at Pokemon Go's New Items / Pokemon Game Confirmed in Development for Nintendo Switch