Square Enix Stops Selling Digital PC Copies Of ‘Final Fantasy 14’ For Brief Period
by Myles McPartland
Final Fantasy XIV (Image courtesy of Squared Enix)
Square Enix recently had to stop selling digital versions of Final Fantasy 14 due to overwhelming demand. The sale of the game was halted over the weekend of July 10 and July 11.
Square Enix’s online store displayed the message: “0 item(s) in stock,” when players attempted to purchase Final Fantasy XIV Online Complete Edition [PC Download]. Square Enix also prevented any additional character creation on North American servers during this time.
Final Fantasy 14 recently set player count records, which was the catalyst to this ordeal. During the week of July 9, Final Fantasy had 47,000 players launching the game from Steam at one time. This was a record at the time, but a new record of 58,000 Steam players at once was set the following week.
This massive spike in players can be attributed to Asmongold, a prominent streamer of World of Warcraft. On July 3, the popular streamer decided to complete Final Fantasy 14 to see if the title is worth “wasting your life” to complete. This stream achieved around 200,000 viewers, many of which likely decided to give the game a try for themselves.
Blizzard also received flak for an ending cinematic they recently revealed for World of Warcraft. Players were obviously displeased as a Youtube video of the cinematic had 14,000 dislikes compared to only 4,500 likes. Players complained that the end cinematic was hard to follow and left the story on a massive cliffhanger.
Final Fantasy 14 was forced to halt the entry of new players when the “A Realm Reborn” expansion was released. This most recent inflow of players does not come near the release of any expansion, as the next one is not due for a number of months.
Final Fantasy 14 was first released by Square Enix in 2010. This version was regarded as greatly flawed, but the version that we see today was released in 2013. The title is now available for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 after originally releasing for PC and Playstation 3.
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