Final Fantasy 14 mod in legal waters

A mod dubbed Playerscope has found its way to the net, allowing Final Fantasy 14 players to see otherwise hidden details about surrounding players. This mod has led to some stalking and privacy concerns that producer and director, Naoki Yoshida, will not stand for.

Shared on the Final Fantasy 14 forum (via IGN), Yoshida is looking into two options:

• Requesting that the tool in question be removed and deleted.
• Pursuing legal action.

Playerscope is particularly invading, as it can dig into Content ID and Account ID, which can be used to see who is playing what character. Moreover, the way it works is also kinda creepy, as the only way for players, be it the one someone is intentionally using it on or just a passerby, to not be seen is by joining a private Discord server and opting out. Any that have not will have their info scraped and stored on a server owned by the mod author.

The mod could originally be found on Github, but it has since been taken down, alongside other alternatives, though, as IGN points out, it could be making its rounds within niche communities.

The response from the community also paints this as a weird decision, as feasibly, this could all be stamped out by updating the game to not leak that info on the client’s side.

Gabriel Stanford-Reisinger Editor-in-Chief

Gabe has been a gamer since he was young, playing games like Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, Guitar Hero, and whatever looked cool on GameFly. Ever since 2018, he’s been infatuated with the inner workings of the gaming and entertainment industries, covering a wide range of topics from video games to TV and film. Starting as a contributor for PSX Extreme, he’s worked his way up to its Managing Editor. Using what’s he learned over the years, he founded Smash Jump to remind everyone to smash jump.