A Final Fantasy 14 streamer was jailed in-game, banned for ten days, and got a week’s suspension on Twitch for using mods in the MMO, amid a seeming crackdown on their use.
As reported by Polygon, Twitch user Bagel Goose was streaming Final Fantasy 14 with mods active (that altered his own visuals without affecting other players) when his character was teleported to an in-game jail to face judgement from a moderator.
Various mods have been created to alter the players’ HUD and make things like damage output (an important statistic for high-level players) clearer, but a blog post from Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida on May 9 made clear even these are prohibited.
There’s no way my tank got pulled out of DSR mid pull to get a 10 day ban on a clean account. I hate it here.
— Melo (@MeloArkwind) May 10, 2022
While these mods may not be damaging to other players, Yoshida said, analysing every mod in existence to determine its appropriateness “is physically impossible, which is why we decided to simply prohibit the use of all third-party tools and software.”
The in-jail conversations between player and moderator are kept fairly secret, and while Bagel Goose’s imprisonment can be seen on YouTube, any videos of the assessment and subsequent punishment were seemingly removed soon after being uploaded.
The Final Fantasy 14 moderator doesn’t trigger the Twitch violation, but it appears Bagel Goose was reported to the streaming platform following his in-game jailing and therefore got a seven-day ban on Twitch as well.
Another streamer, Hiroro_FF, was also recently jailed in-game for using mods but the details of his suspension are unclear and his Twitch account remains unbanned.
While Final Fantasy 14 has gone from strength to strength in recent years, it’s not without its problems. The game has suffered a digital housing crisis, and Yoshida has asked PvP players to act with more respect or face potential bans.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.