Quote Originally Posted by VerdeLuck View Post
They could break ACT, AM, XIVAlexander, and a few other plugins if they just encrypted game packets, and they could probably stop players from datamining the game if they uppped the security of the installation files, but they seem to be not interested at all in doing this.
Getting around encrypted game packets wouldn't be difficult. The only surefire way they'd ever be able to "break" any of those programs is with a dedicated anti-cheat software that was routinely updated. Which they'll never do for the simple fact it wouldn't be worthwhile financially. Third party programs have become so ubiquitous nowadays, SE would lose substantially more than they'd ever gain attempting to break them. For example sake, losing say 100k would cost them over 16M annually despite that only being probably around 10% of the overall playerbase. That's an insane amount of money to lose for essentially nothing. There's no benefit beyond saying "our game is now 100% pure". Breaking third party won't get them new subscriptions to make up those losses. In fact, 100k is a very low estimation considering the disastrous impact losing third party would have on the raid and roleplay scenes, two of the largest side activities in the game.

Put simply, they aren't interested because there's zero for them to care when they can have the best of both worlds.