Pokemon Go is permanently locking players out of the game due to this reason


Be careful out there, not only do you have to contest with hoards of random Pokemon jumping out to try to take you down a peg, now you’ve also got Niantic gunning for you.

Players have reported being permanently locked out from their accounts for something that’s entirely not their fault. Banning hackers and cheaters is good for the game, but randomly banning people is obviously an issue.

image: pokemongo.com
image: pokemongo.com

Users have been having their names flagged for being ‘offensive‘, for example a player with the name “WMDraongslayer”. He had the game open the moment his name was flagged, and it had actually been changed to a random string of numbers. While still logged-in, this user changed their name to SnorlaxSlayerWM.

He didn’t think much of it, until getting an email later from Niantic:

“Trainer,

We have reset your nickname because it has been identified as offensive to other players. The next time you login you will be asked to select a new nickname.

-NianticOps”

Since he’d already updated his username immediately after it was changed, he figured it was all good, until logging in again and being told that he needs to change his nickname. This triggers some type of bug, which gets you trapped in an infinate loop of error messages.

change nickname

What’s offensive about WMDraongslayer in the first place? Maybe “WMD”? Maybe a moderator was looking too quickly and say “DongSlayer?” It’s a stretch, but what else could it have been that got this username flagged? Many players have reported similar issues to Niantic, as this has allegedly been happening for months. For now, it remains a mystery like Area 51.

Watch out for bugs!

image: narvii.com
image: narvii.com