Niantic Must Ban All Players Involv d In The Brokers Guild

On October 18, 2017, a massive cheating ring within the Ingress Resistance faction, The Brokers Guild, its RIOT database, and a full list of directly involved cheaters, were publicly revealed. Top level cheats and organizers included staff of the game's game developer, Niantic, as well as trusted Resistance Vanguards and event Points Of Contact. Enlightened faction agents waited 10 days, until October 28, for Niantic to respond to the cheating scandal and announce a response.

The response was tepid, to say the least. Niantic acknowledged that it was investigating the cheating, the technology created and used by The Brokers Guild members violates the Terms Of Service, and that top-level contacts (presumably including staff) have stepped down or will be removed from their roles. It is also reviewing long-term plans for the Guardian medal.

We, the undersigned, object to this response as being wholly insufficient, and request that the accounts of all 790 members of The Brokers Guild (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16w5Wo4k3MkaKV2jbdZlgbf9OTtrf_RqfqDlS-2RG1oI/edit?usp=sharing) be immediately suspended, and permanently banned from the game no later than December 31, 2017 except for any members who are able to demonstrate by that date that their participation was solely for the purpose of investigating and reporting of The Brokers Guild and its RIOT tool.

These are the only acceptable sanctions for the following reasons:

1. These are not isolated incidents of cheating. Rather, it is a years-long, highly organized cheating ring that involves providing illicit information to a multitude of other players to create team dominance.

2. The central ring of 790 Resistance players are generally high level and among the most trusted members of their communities and by game developer Niantic. They have abused these positions to damage the integrity of the game.

3. Niantic has previously shown both its willingness and ability to end gear sales cheating through numerous account bans as well as making all purchased gear disappear. By contrast, the coordination and severity of impact in the game (not just to Guardian badges, but to other efforts such as fielding, and the ease of in-game bullying through player-specific targeting) done by The Brokers Guild and RIOT is much greater. The damage to players and the game can not be addressed by a few account suspensions or blocks, leaving the others to re-form such cheating rings and re-create such tools after a slap on the wrist.

4. Some players have suggested that this cheating is no different than some more common violations of TOS, such as trespassing by overstaying a park closing, or using multiple accounts. This is a false equivalence. While those types of cheating can result in severe consequences to other players, they are isolated to a single cheater in a small play area, and do not require any special tools or expertise. By contrast, The Brokers Guild is an international conspiracy with global effect, facilitated by an advanced, specially created software tool.

If Niantic wishes its user base to continue playing and trusting the game system and its developer, it must take rapid, meaningful action. Certainly it should continue reviewing legal avenues to pursue the RIOT developers. Certainly it should continue a review of technologies to prevent future development of such tools. Certainly it should continue legal and technological investigations to identify end recipients/users of the RIOT data who knowingly violated TOS, and take action against those players as well. But as a starting point, all of The Brokers Guild players must be removed from the game.