Gil-farming crackdown in Final Fantasy XI

Square Enix announced Monday that it is working to curtail the selling of large amounts of gil, the currency of Final Fantasy XI, for real-world money--a practice know as real money trading (RMT). The announcement, which was posted on both the English and Japanese PlayOnline Web sites, stated that "a number of accounts which were confirmed to have violated the user agreement by using unauthorized third-party software tools were discovered and have been permanently suspended."

This purge was initiated after an investigation begun in May turned up "large-scale RMT operations." As a result, 250 accounts were suspended permanently, and some 250 billion in illicitly produced was gil removed from circulation. To other would-be entrepreneurs, the announcement warns that "acts of RMT will not be tolerated in Final Fantasy XI, and any violations of the user agreement will be dealt with severely."