Square Enix bans FFXI gil-sellers

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 February, 2006

700 chucked after market spikes.

Square Enix has terminated more than 700 accounts of Final Fantasy XI players involved in "real money trading" by producing large amounts of gil (in-game currency) which was then sold on for proper wonga.

The terminations mark the conclusion of a lengthy investigation. "Thanks to these measures, more than 300 billion gil has been removed from circulation, and the overly inflated prices of items have begun to fall to more realistic levels," said the developer in a statement.

"Furthermore, emergency maintenance has already been performed on all worlds for the purpose of implementing RMT countermeasures. This maintenance took place over two stages, starting on January 17th."

"As has been previously stated, acts of RMT will not be tolerated in FINAL FANTASY XI, and any violations of the user agreement will be dealt with severely," the statement ends.

They've got their work cut out for them, by the looks of it - a quick Google reveals plenty of places to buy FFXI gil. One site offers gil in amounts between 1,000 and 10,000 - the top tier asking for $175 - and promises in-game delivery within 24 hours.

Final Fantasy XI is available on PC and PS2, with an Xbox 360 version due out in April.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 6 years ago

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

  • Hunam85 #1 6 years ago

    700 people banned? So there are like 12 people left?

  • Kafeen #2 6 years ago

    Some people really shouldn't be allowed to speak.

  • Yazoo #3 6 years ago

    I concur full heartedly.

  • reality_cheque #4 6 years ago

    @Kafeen: I say that all the time, but in the real world they call you a fascist :p

    I also believe people should need a license to use the internet, to save us from all of the 12 yr old emo kids with myspace accounts and to stop the spread of boyband/rocky horror fansites on Geocities.

  • Mr_Whacker #5 6 years ago

    I bet Square are just gutted they never thought of it. They must have LOADS of gil!

  • Bitkari #6 6 years ago

    Someone should tell Squeenix that Alan Greenspan is now available for work..

  • Xerx3s #7 6 years ago

    Argh! No! Its 1927 all over again!

    /will code xhtml for food. x)

  • Yazoo #8 6 years ago

    @Arbiter: yes they they could analyse it to death, but in real life you can't buy money for Christmas at a fraction of it's usual cost in the sales. ;)

  • Kami #9 6 years ago

    Forgive me, I'm TRYING to look surprised here...

    Ahh, I give up. The gilfarmers in FFXI have almost always been in control of the games very unsteady economy - it was a matter of time before some sellers got greedy. The FFXI economy has always been unsteady. Droprates of items low to non-existant in some cases. Monopolising and camping the order of the day.

    Squenix can ban as many as they want, it's going to take a massive rethink of the economy and some game mechanic changes to truly be rid of the problem. Other games have the same issue of in-game currency farming, but have much more stable economies. Squenix need to be asking themselves why this is the case, and make appropriate changes.

    These people do this for a living. Ban them, they'll only buy another copy of the game, get another account and do it all over again... this is what they do. A exercise in futility... I do hope Squenix find a way to end this practice in FFXI. But it won't be possible by just banning players...

  • Kami #10 6 years ago

    Not so much "Stock Market" as "Black Market".

    No seriously. The FFXI economy was always a difficult one. When you have a group of people who have trained for XX hours a day, spending 24 hours a day thereon swapping shifts with their colleagues, camping and monopolising rare monsters and spawns and making sure other more casual players are not able to acquire the items or equipments that they need in order to progress with the game... well. You have the beginnings of an economy that will be dictated by that group and all other players are at their mercy.

    Absolutely right that the "Christmas Sales" were shambolic. People were paying vastly over the odds for tiny amounts of currency, at the same time the farmers hiked prices to ridiculous levels (In August, before I left, I made a Scorpion Harness +1. That then was worth 13 million gil. Over Christmas, my friend who had gone back to reassure his former linkshell buddies he was OK told me that a Scorpion Harness +1 had been hiked to 50 million gil). And that's what happens when an in-game economy is run as a for-profit business.

    The question is this: Why should any player feel like they have to resort to purchasing Gil, from the people who are making their in-game time a living hell?