Yoshi-P Warns of Legal Action Over 'Stalking' Mod in Final Fantasy 14

In early 2025, a mod for Final Fantasy 14 named "Playerscope" raised significant privacy concerns due to its ability to scrape hidden player data. This mod could access details such as character information, retainer information, and any alternate characters linked to a Square Enix account. Playerscope allowed users to track specific data of anyone nearby, sending this information to a centralized database managed by the mod author, regardless of whether the user was actively looking at a specific player or just near others. This mod accessed sensitive data like "Content ID" and "Account ID," enabling tracking across different characters by exploiting the Content ID system introduced in the Dawntrail expansion, which allowed blacklisting across service accounts and multiple characters.

The only way to prevent data scraping by Playerscope was to join its private Discord channel and opt out, meaning every Final Fantasy 14 player not in this channel risked having their data tracked. The community expressed strong concerns about privacy, with one Reddit user stating, "the purpose is obvious, to stalk people."

The mod gained popularity after being found on Github, but was removed due to terms of service violations. Although it was allegedly mirrored on Gittea and Gitflic, IGN confirmed that the Playerscope repository no longer exists on these platforms. However, the mod might still be circulating in private communities.

Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida, the producer and director of Final Fantasy 14, addressed the issue in a statement on the game's official forum. He confirmed the existence of third-party tools like Playerscope that access undisclosed character information, including internal account IDs used to correlate data across characters on the same service account. Yoshida noted that while personal information like addresses and payment details cannot be accessed by these tools, the development and operations teams are considering removing the tool and pursuing legal action. He emphasized the importance of a safe environment for players and reiterated the prohibition of third-party tools under the Final Fantasy 14 User Agreement.

Despite the prohibition, tools like Advanced Combat Tracker are commonly used by the raiding community and referenced on websites like FFlogs. Yoshida's legal threat marks a significant escalation in response to such mods.

The FF14 Community Responds

The Final Fantasy 14 community has reacted strongly to Yoshida's statement. One user criticized the lack of plans to fix the game to prevent such mods, while another suggested that the game should be updated to prevent information exposure on the client side. A third commenter expressed disappointment, feeling that the statement failed to address the root cause of the problem.

The author of Playerscope has not yet responded to the controversy.