FFXIV: The Billboard Incident
Posted on July 6, 2022 by Aywren
Early yesterday morning, a strange tweet began to circulate amongst FFXIV folks on Twitter. When I first saw the responses and the tweet, I thought for sure this was a joke. Someone had Photoshoped this right?
I mean, who would actually rent an IRL billboard with real money for their in-game nightclub’s summer event?
Turns out, not only was it real, but there were – I heard – four billboards (including one digital billboard) that went up with the possibility of more planned. As of last night, I heard at least one has been removed.
What’s the Fuss?
There’s a number of issues with this billboard image – not just the fact that it includes FFXIV’s logo and copyright (which they probably did on purpose to try to follow media usage rules). Where it went terribly wrong was that the image obviously used third party tools for:
- Modded Viera hair that is not in the game
- Datamined Viera outfit that is not in the game yet
- Poses that do not exist in the game
All this right after Yoshi-P made a big statement about third party tools usage.
Needless to say, this got the creative community in a tizzy. Those who develop and use “crime tools” for harmless and personal screenshots do it with the understanding of keeping it quiet. They are not thrilled at the idea of modded content on a giant billboard for all the world to see…
It Gets Better
I’m not quite sure how this IRL billboard was supposed to bolster attendance for an in-game event. I mean, random Joe Shmoe driving down the freeway isn’t going to see this billboard and suddenly want to install the free trial of FFXIV only to roll a character and come to their beach blast.
Apparently, their advertising extended out across digital platforms wherein they also spammed streamers and Reddits. And that’s when more info was uncovered.
The – Rain – Free Company of Balmung has established itself as a nightclub that caters to ERP (Erotic Role Play). So while their billboard may have been advertising a PG rated event, the truth is, this nightclub is rife with R rated activity. None of that was stated in the ad, of course.
How do we know this? It’s on their website.
Only… oops… they’ve taken their website down it seems.
But guess what? The Wayback Machine remembers. And if you choose “Services” you can see exactly what they’re into. (Seems like the "Services" seciton fluxuates from being listed to unlisted on Wayback.)
Not only that, but apparently the folks running their Discord responded to any criticism or concern about the legal trouble they were going to get into for the billboard with a mix of “LOL :)” ignorance and outright vile words. So much that I’m not reposting that kind of language on this blog. Just know that it really didn’t paint any of them in a good light.
Reddit had a field day with this.
Meme templates were created.
Their FC house was laid siege upon last night in true FFXIV community spirit.
News about the billboard has been featured everywhere from Massively to USA Today. So, I guess their ad got attention. Just maybe not the kind they expected.