A new update on the Final Fantasy XIV news page has detailed Square Enix’s intentions for cracking down on real-money trading. Although this kind of activity tends to occur in a number of MMORPG games, it’s still a shady practice that goes against the terms of most services. The team behind the massively successful FFXIV is outlining its commitment to derailing the ongoing RMT activity in the game, according to the new update.

Despite Square Enix’s monitoring and constant work to identify those cheating and taking part in illicit activities in the fantasy MMO, a level of persistent real-money trading seems to be going on in Final Fantasy XIV regardless. The devs do produce new lists each week that detail substantial numbers of accounts that have been banned from the game. However, given the sheer size and scale of the popular title, it’s probably of little surprise that Square Enix has explained that they “continue to observe a certain level of RMT activity in the game each week.”

Real money trading is classified in the update as “the act of selling and buying in-game data (such as items and characters) with real-life currency, or assisting in such activity.” As you might expect, this causes unfairness and in-game imbalance and is naturally against the terms of the game’s User Agreement. Still, there are clearly a cohort of users that are willing to partake in this kind of fraudulent activity it seems. Square Enix will be taking steps to up their monitoring and enforcement in regards to those participating in real-money trading activities. These include boosting staffing numbers, upgrading existing tools, and adding new procedures to further strengthen enforcement.

The update also explains further about the so-called “RMT vendors” that exist within Final Fantasy XIV. As noted by Square Enix, these groups exist solely to make real-world profits from players and can often cause problems for casual FFXIV players in order to further their own agendas. The developer warns players against engaging with any members of these groups, reiterating that “furthermore, RMT vendors very commonly engage in real-life criminal activity, such as the unauthorized access of accounts and the use of stolen credit card information.”

Basically, it’s a pretty unwise move to get involved in RMT activities, and you’ll be more likely to find yourself on the wrong end of a scam if you do so. Square Enix also encourages players to boycott the use of RMT vendors altogether, as “there would be no reason for RMT vendors to exist if players do not use their services.”

Final Fantasy XIV has recently kicked off its annual Halloween festivities in the 2022 All Saints’ Wake event, on a lighter note. Hopefully, the steps that Square Enix plans to take to crack down on these RMT ghouls will go into full effect pretty quickly.

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