The creators of Pokemon Go cut off service access by third-party apps, such as Pokemon tracking app Pokevision, in its latest update of the popular AR game.

A number of third-party titles have come to the fore since the game’s launch, which allowed players to see which Pokemon were nearby, and track locations on a map.

However, such apps attracted criticism from John Hanke, CEO of the game’s developer Niantic last week, who referred to the use of these services as cheating.

Explaining the decision in a post on Facebook, the Pokemon Go creator said: “We have limited access by third party services which were interfering with our ability to maintain quality of service for our users and to bring Pokemon Go to users around the world.”

It has been suggested that third-party apps were making so many requests to the Pokemon Go servers that they became overloaded, impacting the user experience of normal players.

It said that the large number of users around the world had made the roll-out of the game a “challenge”, but insisted it was committed to bringing the game where it is not yet available, highlighting Brazil in particular.

Within the update, the company also removed an in-app tracking tool used by players, the “3 step display”, stating it was “confusing, and did not meet our underlying product goals”.

Pokevision creator Yang Liu said that the app was designed as an alternative to the “broken” in-app tracking tool.