Digital copies for Final Fantasy 14: Online Complete Edition were temporarily paused according to reports online and verified by IGN. While sales have since resumed for Final Fantasy 14, the pause may have been caused by the MMORPG’s exploding popularity.
Over the weekend, social media users reported that the Square Enix Store listing for digital PC copies of Final Fantasy 14: Online were grayed out, and replaced with a “Waitlist” button. Final Fantasy 14 was still under “Waitlist” when IGN checked the store listing this morning, though digital sales have since resumed.
Many speculated that the pause in digital sales was a result of Final Fantasy 14’s popularity. And indeed there is some credence to this theory.
Credit: Reddit, u/Polydopamine
Like other MMOs, Final Fantasy 14 has several servers, and the most popular servers are often congested, preventing new players from immediately creating new characters there. This isn’t to say servers are full, but that they’re at capacity at this time and players can wait for less busy times to join.
Last night, reportedly every server was congested, meaning any new player hoping to join a server would be unable to do so. IGN reached out to Square Enix for further details on the situation, but they declined to comment.
If the congestion was indeed the case, then pausing digital sales for Final Fantasy 14 makes sense. New players would not be able to immediately get started after downloading their brand-new copy of FF14 even if they wanted to.
Pausing digital game sales may have been a way to prevent players from logging into Final Fantasy 14 for the first time only to be turned away because of server capacity.
According to Square Enix’s own server status page, the congestion has subsided and many of the data center’s most popular servers are available again. This may be why digital sales for Final Fantasy 14 have resumed.
But whether this is a result of popularity or a technical issue is unclear. Final Fantasy 14 has had a record year breaking its concurrent player record on Steam and again growing its overall registered player count. Popular streamers have also begun making content around Square Enix’s MMORPG.
This is also a boom year as Final Fantasy 14 often sees an influx of players ahead of a new expansion and Square Enix recently announced Endwalker will be released on November 19. Check out IGN’s massive interview with FF14 director Naoki Yoshida for more info.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor and Dancer main.