Why you shouldn't cheat at Ingress?

As kids we used to play games on TVs, computers and handheld consoles, while some still play even being parents. Gaming mentality never dies for some people and some struggle to find time to play games. The feeling we get after finishing a level of any game is indescribable. We spend too much time in front of aforementioned screens playing various types of games categorized from arcade to adventure, now evolved up to a high end realistic approach with the growth of technology and electronics.

Cheating or cheat codes are a part of any game and there is no game that is made with no cheating possible or there is at least one expert who finds a loophole to cheat in any game for their own benefit. Cheating is acceptable up to some scale in many games, but there are games that can be cheated by sacrificing your own personality, reputation and dignity, that might end up with a total ban of the player profile plus the termination of the game. ‘Ingress’ is one of those few games that anyone can cheat to falsely increase scores and interrupt on-going missions.

First of all Ingress is not available on computers and TVs. It is a mobile game that can be played on handheld devices running on Android or iOS platforms. It is an augmented reality game that involves the player to carry the playing device and move physically across cities and countries to achieve goals and contribute to their own team. There are two teams, the Enlightened and the Resistance, who battle to save humanity as its story-line evolves. Regardless of the team you choose to play for, there is room to prove yourself as someone who run for lame benefits that you do not deserve.

Ingress is a GPS based game, which is quite different from other games you have ever played in your life. The device you carry while playing Ingress is your biggest weapon as well the biggest treasure. Ingress is also open for cheating. It has a similar mechanism that works like cheat codes called 'pass-codes', which provide complementary items by submitting pass-phrases revealed by the Niantic Labs, the company that invented Ingress. Those pass-phrases publicized in an encrypted form and players have to be brave enough and put some real effort to decipher those to get their hands on those valuable items (weaponry, energy and building blocks). Therefore pass-codes are hardly mentioned as cheat codes. 

The other way of cheating is location alteration, which is strictly prohibited. Since Ingress uses your device's actual location using its GPS, one way or the most famous way to cheat in this game is falsifying a player's location to appear to be in a place where you are really not. It's something like living in two places at once. This kind of activities can benefit your account and your team, but are very temporary because in many cases those players will end up with a complete ban of their profiles. This kind of cheating activities are spotted by fellow players and by the opposition, where they can report you as a cheater or a player with suspicious activities that do not align with the reality. Every activity you perform in Ingress is shown to the whole world, therefore players who scrutinize them have a chance to point at you for performing unusual activities. Even if they do not report, the game owners will spot and track you as a spoofer, which is illegal in Ingress. Use of 3rd party mobile applications and mobile emulators running on PCs are very famous among such annoying cheaters. However the ultimate result will be a ban of your player profile, which is something that affects not just you, but your team and your community.

There are 16 levels in Ingress and players gain the maximum power by reaching the 8th level, which denotes the persuasion and the probability of cheating span within level 1 to level 8 players with the hunger for maximum power. With the time played and the experiences gained, players learn to stay more legit and not to misuse tactics thereafter. It is unlikely to see a higher level player above 8th level, using cheating mechanisms to score more to reach the next milestones that does not benefit with power but only with personal satisfaction and reputation. But as mentioned earlier, there is room for anyone to cheat and play dual games in Ingress.

On the other hand, being an evolving game and a piece of software runs on a mobile device, it is supposed to produce errors in the game, which sometimes crucify the players as cheaters among Ingress communities causing a harm on players’ reputation, due to technical issues appear while syncing data to and from servers. Niantic is always working to make it safe by fixing those errors to minimize such frustrating situations some players face and to avoid the back door intrusion.

If you wish to serve your team in a better and a quicker way, or you need more scores and goals to be achieved in a few hours of playing, this kind of cheating will be the worst nightmare you will ever experience in Ingress world. Therefore always be honest and play fairly when you are in this unique game. You cannot cheat yourself even though you cheat the whole world. Reputation earned by cheating will haunt you if you take the wrong turn for greener pastures.