Final Fantasy XI, XIV offline

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 March, 2011

Square Enix reduces power consumption.

Japanese game company Square Enix has made massively multiplayer online role-playing games Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV unavailable to play worldwide in an effort to conserve energy following last week's earthquake and tsunami.

The move follows Konami's decision to halt Metal Gear Online play.

Over the weekend the Japanese government asked householders to conserve energy in the hope it would help avoid power cuts across the nation.

Service on the two Final Fantasy MMORPGs was halted yesterday. The suspension is planned for at least a week. Final Fantasy XI's April service will be free as a result.

"Due to the continuous earthquakes occurring in the eastern regions of Japan since 11th March, the power companies in Japan have encouraged everyone to cooperate by conserving as much energy as possible as it is feared there will not be enough power supply," Square Enix said in a statement.

"Based on the current situation, we have decided to shut down the game servers temporarily, and therefore to suspend services of Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XI, and PlayOnline temporarily."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Centrifugal #1 1 year ago

    It's nice to see Square Enix doing their bit.

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #2 1 year ago

    Heres to hoping all the employees are alive and well, thoughts go out during this harsh time. I still bet the hardcore players will complain though

  • spiritsnake #3 1 year ago

    never in my wildest dreams did i think a disaster in one part of the world would affect the rest of the world as far as games are concerned.
    imagine the servers that control the drm for games that require authentication before each play session get heat with a tornado or something, thats alot of games going useless

  • The12thMonkey #4 1 year ago

    Some did indeed bitch, but they were slapped down pretty damn quick. Also, many people have been talking about donating the April ff11 fee to the relief fund

  • levitate #5 1 year ago

    The devastation is massive, hundreds of thousands of people dead or homeless and all the kids in the Western world can moan about is that they can't play a particular computer game. It's a sad state of affairs.

  • Whitster #6 1 year ago

    I don't know why Spiritsnake is getting negged, he makes a fair point without making light of the current disaster. Although it's more forseeable that an MMORPG may get take offline if it's servers are in an affected country, with the over riding relience on online varification that seems to be coming about will it mean that a disaster in Redmond could lock everyone out of their x-box live single player content for example, and if so is this even something that computer game companies have a business continuity plan for?
    Edited by Whitster at 14/03/11 @ 11:23

  • silversun #7 1 year ago

    I still play final fantasy 14 although i have left 11 and i think they done the right thing here and hope to go back to try 14 which is slowly improving as a game atm when they all back.

  • timewarp87 #8 1 year ago

    Does anyone care that a games are taken offline after something like this happens? I mean come on, get it in perspective. A catastrophic disaster hits a country and some people are more worried about future disasters hitting online games? You will find that when something of this magnitude hits your country, which I pray will never occur, that the last thing you will have on your mind is making sure a group of gamers can play online. But maybe not being able to play online IS the end of the world for you?
    So many people live in cotton wool worlds out of touch with the big picture. Why dont you put the news on and see what is happening in THIS world instead of what is happening in Eorzea ? Or is reality too high a level for you to play?

  • HL706 #9 1 year ago

    If anyone actually complained about this they should be marched into the street and shot.

  • Daikon #10 1 year ago

    @Whitster:

    I'd say spiritsnake is getting negged for terrible grammar, spelling and lack of capitalization.

    As for shutting down FF servers, it's good that Square Enix wants to step up to the plate and do its part but I can't help but feel it's largely a symbolic gesture.
    A much more efficient way to save energy for instance would be to turn of street lights in the evening and I don't see that happening (at least not in the prefecture where I live (Shimane)).

  • Whitster #11 1 year ago

    @timewarp87

    I make you totally right, in terms of the bigger picture here, or in any future disaster situation, not being able to play games pales in comparision to the loss of human life and misery caused to the effected people. However, people have different priorites, and while you and I may share this opinion, others will not, and these people are just as much legitimate customers of these companies as we. My question is simply with so many publishers forcing online checks and DRM into single player content that should not be relient on foreign servers have these companies taken business continuity into account.

    @Daikon

    Fair point, but I've come to expect that from internet comment threads.
    Edited by Whitster at 14/03/11 @ 10:16

  • orangpelupa #12 1 year ago

    im confused, is FF use Japan Server to serve the World Wide player?

    isnt usually in MMORPG the server is independent? (maybe one or two in each region)

  • timewarp87 #13 1 year ago

    If you ran a business, and someone close to you died, your mum, dad, sister, whatever, would you care about your business in those days after that loss? Would that be your top priority?Or if there was a risk of a nuclear meltdown near you, would you risk your life to make sure little Johnny can play his online game? Im sure many people in Japan have lost someone close too them and serving the outside world is the last things on their mind right now.
    And decent, morale human being would be considerate of this. Its not like their offline forever. DRM game doesnt work? Play another game.But if that doesn't wash with peoples self centered self absorbed existence, then its a prime example of the state of the world today

  • Shikasama #14 1 year ago

    Timewarp - Reign in that high horse pal, he was just making an observation.

    People on the internet are so quick to jump down each others throats, making themselves look like idiots.

  • silversun #15 1 year ago

    Just a note for thoese that are intrested , the british red cross are taking donatations for both japan appeal and what is happening in Liyba atm.

  • timewarp87 #16 1 year ago

    Shikashim - Im not directing that at anyone, just replying to an argument as I see it.

  • sheldipez #17 1 year ago

    "many people have been talking about donating the April ff11 fee to the relief fund "

    Good on them; thats a nice thought.

  • Slipstream #18 1 year ago

    I don't remember Blizzard taking WoW offline when Azeroth was torn asuder?
    What do you mean Azeroth isn't real?


    Konami are pretty good at trend settng, I'm glad though that in this particular case it was for a worthy cause.

  • levitate #19 1 year ago

    The earthquake was a 9.0 on the Richter scale and shifted the Earth's axis 25 cm (10 inches!). I know this doesn't say much to many of you, but this will have bigger impact on life on this planet than some game servers going offline for a week.

  • SeesThroughAll #20 1 year ago

    The earthquake was a 9.0 on the Richter scale and shifted the Earth's axis 25 cm (10 inches!). I know this doesn't say much to many of you, but this will have bigger impact on life on this planet than some game servers going offline for a week.

    It does have an impact, but not as large as you may think. Large earthquakes always cause the precession axis to shift slightly, with some climatic consequences (again, not as huge as you imagine). But this happened before and will happen again many times in the Earth's life.

    To put some perspective into those 25 cm, compare them to the mean radius of the Earth, which is of over 6300 km. Now extract the angle corresponding to an arc of 0.25 m. Not so scary anymore.

  • tap #21 1 year ago

    Here's how some of our American friends see things ... Ignorant and Online.

    Unbelievable.

  • BuddyChrist #22 1 year ago

    Some serious shit right there, hard to appreciate the sheer scale until to see that water move cars and building around like toys.

    Wonder if the moon has anything to do with this. (reflecting on disaster correlation with the moon being particularly closer to earth)

  • Slipstream #23 1 year ago

    Tap, those are some rather disturbing responses to the crisis, good thing I'm adaept at rejecting people like that. lol at bimbo reaching an epiphany btw xD

  • deano2099 #24 1 year ago

    Worth noting no-one here is really questioning what Square Enix are doing. These are online games, they need servers to run, servers use power, and given the current conditions this is a sensible response. And they're taking the monetary hit by offering free subs next month.

    But the point about DRM servers is legit. Of course, no-one will care about DRM servers when a disaster hits, nor should they. There are much more important things to be worrying about in such circumstances, which is why DRM servers are a bad idea in the first place, and not necessary.

  • Ryze #25 1 year ago

    Good on them. Thoughts are with Japan continually at this time.

  • ruddiger7 #26 1 year ago

    wow people stil play ff14? I wish where i bought it from accepted returns on pc games