More Than 7,000 Final Fantasy 14 Accounts Banned Following Real-Money Trading Crackdown

Final Fantasy XIV recently introduced a number of changes to how players could make use of in-game advertisements and the game's Party Finder tool in an effort to stop accounts participating in real-money trading (RMT). Now, a week later, Square Enix is announcing more than 7,000 accounts have been banned.

From October 28 to November 3, 5,734 accounts were banned for participating in RMT or other prohibited activities. An additional 1,332 accounts were banned for RMT advertising. RMT often comes in the form of compromised accounts or bots advertising paid services for real money from a third-party website in-game.

"We will continue to take stringent disciplinary action against any accounts with confirmed involvement in RMT/illicit activity; players should take care to steer clear of any activity that violates the Terms of Service," Square Enix writes in a blog post on the official Final Fantasy XIV website.

Recent changes to Final Fantasy XIV's Party Finder tool include a ban on selling in-game services such as Duty clears, as well as the prohibiting of Party Finding listed under wrong categories.

RMT is an issue in a number of MMOs, from Blizzard's World of Warcraft to Amazon's recently released New World. World of Warcraft's recent patch 9.1.5 now requires players to have a Blizzard authenticator linked to an account in order to post custom text in the game's Group Finder tool, a change to help prevent RMT spam. New World has also cracked down on third-party sellers, implementing new restrictions for newly created accounts and lower level characters often used by RMT sellers to prevent them from trading with other players or transferring wealth.