The Pokemon Company bans thousands of Pokemon Sun and Moon accounts who have altered their save data, blocking them out of a number of the games' features.

It looks like the developers of Pokemon are not the type to take kindly to cheaters. Those who got early pirated copies of the game back when it launched in November were already banned from the game, and now the Pokemon Company has brought the banhammer down on nearly 6,000 accounts from any online activity in Pokemon Sun and Moon for having edited or altered save data. Making the announcement on the Pokemon Global Link website in Japanese, the Pokemon Company announced that so far 5,954 accounts have been banned.

And according to to VG 24/7, that's not the end of the bans; the developer will continue to ban those who cheat in Pokemon Sun and Moon. The Pokemon Company says it will take "similar measures on a regular basis" and the developer is considering "further restrictions" for those who continue to use altered save data, and the studio will do so without warning.

Any player who has been banned for this reason will no longer be able to use Game Sync, enter in Rating Battles and Battle Competitions, or participate in Global Missions. Obviously, the single-player part of the game can still be played, but the Pokemon Company is removing cheaters from the online ecosystem.

While it should not be a surprise to anyone who has been banned given the fact that they had to have knowingly edited their save data, they will be notified of the ban within Pokemon Sun and Moon by the message: “The connection to the Pokémon Global Link from this saved data has been denied. (Error Code: 090-0212)”

As Digital Trends reports, altered save data refers to hacking Pokemon into the game that are not meant to be there. Adding these modded Pokemon to the game breaks the Terms of Service, which is Pokemon Company's grounds for punishment.

One potential problem with these bans, according to Kotaku, is that it's easy for these illegal Pokemon to come to unknowing players from trading online. Depending on how the Pokemon Company monitors its bans, it could affect unwitting players who believe all their Pokemon are legitimate. However, it appears that those banned so far have been those who admit they knowingly hacked the game.

Either way, for those playing Pokemon Sun and Moon, it's a good idea to make sure any altered Pokemon or save data on their games are deleted and to be careful when trading Pokemon online to avoid any further bans that could occur in the future.

Pokemon Sun and Moon are out now on Nintendo 3DS.