New ways to monetize the game through customization.

[SturmChurro]

No, it won't. A good chunk of these people only play FFXIV because of mods. SE would lose significantly more going after modders and third party plugins. Hence why they ignore them entirely unless something is blatantly brought to their attention. The whole Ultimate drama was a perfect example of them making a momentary stink about it to make it seem like they care then everything going back to exactly how it's always been. To give you specifics, the estimated amount of people using mods and third party stuff exceeds 300,000 active players based on unique downloads of the popular programs. If even just 50,000 quit should they be banned, that loss of monthly revenue is more than anything those people would buy off the Mogstation.

There's a reason mods and things like ACT have never been banned. And it isn't because the devs are simply being nice. It's because it's more profitable to let them all exist in a grey area.

Paid mods. If people make it a problem it could force SE to take down paid mods. That is the context. People will continue to play anyway, even if they went after much of the mods. Let's be real. I do like how the modding community thinks they have so much power though.

[ForteNightshade]

Paid mods. If people make it a problem it could force SE to take down paid mods. That is the context. People will continue to play anyway, even if they went after much of the mods. Let's be real. I do like how the modding community thinks they have so much power though.

What I said still appeals because SE isn't going to come after one sub-section of modders. It simply isn't worth it to them.

You're also underestimating how much the influence these third party programs have nowadays. FFlogs literally changed the entire meta despite the devs often getting credit for it. Selfish jobs like White Mage and Samurai aren't brought into parties because SE broke the Stormblood meta. They're brought because FFlogs introduced rDPS, which removed the actual barrier that encouraged people to lock them out in the first place. People "made it a problem" with Dragonsong and look what happened. A few words, a couple streamers temp-banned and then everything went right back to where it was. All those plugins people were hoping got banned? They're still active and extremely popular.

At the end of the day, it's all about profitability. Unless SE is somehow hurt by the mod community from a financial perspective, they won't care one bit. Paid mods aren't hurting them in the slightest. If anything, they're a benefit.