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

In early 2025, a Final Fantasy 14 mod named "Playerscope" sparked 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 player data of anyone nearby, sending this information to a centralized database managed by the mod's author. This tracking included "Content ID" and "Account ID," which could be used to monitor players across different characters, exploiting the Content ID system introduced in the Dawntrail expansion.

To prevent data scraping, players had to join a private Discord channel for Playerscope and opt out. This meant that every Final Fantasy 14 player not in the channel was potentially having their data collected, raising serious privacy issues. The community's reaction was vocal, with one Reddit user stating, "the purpose is obvious, to stalk people."

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

Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida addressed the issue on the game's official forum, referencing Playerscope without naming it directly. He confirmed the existence of third-party tools that access hidden character information and stated that the development and operations teams were considering options such as requesting the tool's removal and pursuing legal action. Yoshida emphasized that personal information like addresses and payment details could not be accessed by these tools and reiterated the prohibition of third-party tools under the Final Fantasy 14 User Agreement.

Despite the ban on third-party tools, tools like Advanced Combat Tracker are commonly used by the raiding community and referenced on sites like FFlogs. Yoshida's legal threat marks a significant escalation in the game's stance against such mods.

The Final Fantasy 14 community responded critically to Yoshida's statement. One user remarked, "fixing the game to break the mod isn’t on the list of options they’re considering I see." Another suggested, "or you could just see how not to expose the information on [the player’s] client side. Of course, this means extra work which they did not plan for, but is Final Fantasy 14 really on such a tight schedule and budget they can't deal with these things properly?" A third user expressed disappointment, noting that the statement "really fails to acknowledge the root cause of the problem."

The author of Playerscope has yet to respond to these developments.