Brandon Tan, widely regarded as the world's top Pokemon GO player, has been given a 30-day suspension from the game. It has not been made clear by Tan or Niantic exactly what the suspension was caused by.

Tab is a member of the "Level 40 club," a group of Pokemon GO's most hardcore players. He has hundreds of millions of experience points in the game, and tweets about it frequently. Posting about his suspension on Twitter. he even threatened to leave the game for good.

While it hasn't been directly confirmed yet, guesses can be made as to why Tan has been suspended from the game. He made a tweet offering a "Mewtwo service," letting users of the game pay money in order for Tan to catch them the legendary Pokemon.  The offer goes against Niantic's terms of service for Pokemon GO, which states:

"By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree that when using the Services and Content, you will not:"

  • use the Services or Content, or any portion thereof, for any commercial purpose or for the benefit of any third party or in a manner not permitted by these Terms, including but not limited to (a) gathering in App items or resources for sale outside the App, (b) performing services in the App in exchange for payment outside the App, or (c ) sell, resell, rent, or lease the App or your Account

The tweet was deleted after it was made but can be found via screenshots. It offers ascending prices based on the IV (a general measure of quality in Pokemon GO) of the Mewtwo in question. Niantic takes its rules seriously, so this could have been a significant problem.

No doubt Tan was in the wrong offering services for money, so it would make sense that this led to his suspension. In thirty days, fans will be able to see if Tan is returning to the game. After dedicating so much of his time to Pokemon GO, it's hard to see him doing anything else.