Over 5,000 Final Fantasy 14 players were banned for real-money trading in one week
Busted.
Between February 25 and March 3 this year, Square Enix banned over 5,000 players from Final Fantasy 14 for activities related to real-money trading. Though paying for in-game gear, boosts, and so on with actual money is prohibited, there are still plenty of people out there selling items, raid clears, mounts, PvP ranks, whole accounts, and the in-game currency of gil, which people are supposed to be trading with.
In a recent news post, Square Enix announced that 5,037 players were banned for participating in real-money trading, and a further 814 were banned for advertising it. Players who see real-money trading being advertised were advised, "any witnessed RMT advertisement can be reported by right clicking the character name in the chat log and selecting the menu [Report] -> [Report RMT Activity]."
We recently spoke to game director Naoki Yoshida about Final Fantasy 14's next expansion, Endwalkers, and how it's going to provide the kind of climactic ending you don't get from other MMOs.