Final Fantasy 14 is so insanely popular that game sales have to stop

If you needed proof that Final Fantasy 14 is currently the most popular MMO game on the market, here it is - it is played by so many players that the servers are constantly congested and sales of the game are temporarily suspended. By this fall, the game had been played by more than 24 million players, and a real rush ensued in December when the Endwalker expansion was launched. Since then, the FF14 servers have been having a hard time breathing, and the situation is not improving at all.

Square Enix started giving 7 days of free play to all players (FF14 is a subscription game) as an excuse to wait, but now they are forced to extend it to 14 days due to the general congestion of the server. Moreover, they are making a rare move - they will temporarily suspend the sale of Final Fantasy 14 so that no new users come into the game for a while!

They also temporarily stop trying the game for free, as well as promoting the game through advertisements. The sale suspension will last for several days and will apply to all versions of the game on all platforms, including physical copies. Exactly how retailers will be banned from selling the game is not entirely clear. Fortunately, expansions and other accessories will still be available for purchase.

Square Enix sincerely apologizes for this inconvenience and begs for understanding as they try to resolve the server congestion caused by the game’s huge popularity. One of the planned solutions is the logical one - to add more servers. But the combination of chip shortages and the COVID 19 pandemic did its part, leaving Square Enix unprepared for the situation. But they hope to expand the server infrastructure in the first month of 2022.