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Final Fantasy XIV sales halted because too many people are playing

Otto Kratky
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Final Fantasy XIV, the acclaimed MMO from Square Enix, is dealing with its server congestion issue with a nuclear option: Temporarily suspending sales of the game.

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Players have flocked to Final Fantasy XIV since the launch of its latest expansion, Endwalker, but Square Enix apparently did not prepare enough servers to deal with the massive influx. In a post on the game’s website, Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida apologized for the “ongoing congestion that has been occurring since Early Access and the official launch of Endwalker,” and promised players compensations.

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Since Final Fantasy XIV is a subscription-based service, the money players have spent has effectively gone to waste due to server congestion. To make up for the lost time, Square is giving away two weeks of game time to players who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription as of December 21.

As for properly dealing with the game’s server congestion, Square Enix is suspending all sales of Final Fantasy XIV, claiming that the “extremely long wait times” players are experiencing is “due to the dense concentration of play hours which far exceed our server capacity, especially during the peak times.” The suspension applies to the sale of Final Fantasy XIV Starter Edition and Complete Edition and will go into effect over the next few days.

To ensure that paying players can get into a server, Square is prioritizing subscription holders over anyone playing Final Fantasy XIV‘s free trial, which includes both the A Realm Reborn and Heavensword expansions and lets players reach up to level 60.

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Otto Kratky
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
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