Author’s Note: This article is not going to pretend to be anything akin to “in-character,” as the subject matter is not suited to that particular writing style. This is a controversial topic and will likely offend some.

Whether you choose to continue is up to you. Thank you.

Picture it! You wake up at the crack of dawn to the sound of your phone alarm mimicking a fog horn on a sugar high. Snaps and pops rattle your body as you sluggishly roll yourself out of the Escher-esque mess of sheets and blankets you inadvertently folded over the night.

Fighting the daze of the fresh-morning confusion, you manage to get dressed for work, face washed and clean, minimal lotion residue lumped around your face. Rushing to try to get an edge on other commuters, you grab whatever you can find from the snack stash that for some reason has been invaded by encroaching cans of tuna and soups. You’ll organize it again someday.

Packaged coffee biscuits in hand, you make it out and spend the next third and change of your day grinding out enough to continue existing. But today is different. You’re excited. You rush home, articles of your work attire flying to different corners of your dwelling as you tear through toward your PC. You turn it on, input your pin - failing the first time - and launch Final Fantasy XIV and Discord.

You tell your friends “lol late sorry, traffic!” and world-jump to meet them. You enter the FC estate and rush to your station. Your club has hired a popular DJ and this could be the night it finally gets some recognition.

Fast-forward an hour. You’re feeling a little burnt out. The timing forced you into a dinner of hot pockets and cup noodles - tasty, but hardly nutritious. The club appears exciting, dots of avatars locked in /beesknees line the floor. The chat box is empty, save the five yells from the announcer, letting everyone know how to access the DJ’s Twitch stream. They’re a partner, so there are advertisements, but their playlist is close to what you normally listen to, so you put up with it.

The viewer count dwarfs the number of people in the club. The stream chat is filled with notifications, people laughing, sharing jokes, commenting on the music, discussing nebulous concepts, and buying subscriptions to the stream. Someone donates $10. The DJ unmutes briefly to thank them.

But that’s it, the show is over. The DJ leaves the club, transferring everyone in the stream to the next DJ. This DJ has fewer viewers than the previous one, but it’s still more than there are people in the club. That’s okay, though. The DJ put the address up on the screen this time. You continue to wait for a customer as the night goes on.

Only 2 more hours of fun to go.

How much does a soul cost?

Does that translate to gil? A Business Insider article from 2013 calculated that almost a decade ago, the going rate was anywhere from $540,000 to $8.6 million (in American dollars). Adjusting for inflation, in today’s dollars that is a range of roughly $675,000 to $10.75 Million. That is quite a disparity, so to be safe, we’ll use the bargain-bin soul value.

Around the time of writing this article, online cash for gil shops are selling one million gil for about $0.45-$0.52. That means $675,000 could get you roughly 1,350,000 purchases of gil, or 1350000000000 gil. One trillion, three hundred fifty billion gil. If you are the lowest common denominator of a person, that is the rough value of your soul in gil. But surely you are not investing the whole thing here, right?

It is time to break down, well, time. A week is seven 24-hour days, a total of 168 hours. The average person sleeps under seven hours a night, or 49 hours a week, and works around 34 hours. At a total of 83 hours, that leaves little over half the week left at 85 hours remaining. But this number does not include other necessities such as eating, errands, travel, and other social aspects.

Still, we can cut those things out. After all, we live in the digital age. Food and other items can be delivered, work can be done at home, and social interaction can be entirely online. This leaves us with 85 hours a week to dedicate to our Eorzean pursuits.

Now, that time is not entirely dedicated to working at venues. There are raids and other activities you can engage in. If you only work that aforementioned three-hour club shift once a week, that might be a little low, but again we are keeping to the minimum, meaning that in a year, you are only putting about 156 hours a year into this extra work.

While I do not have much in terms of usable data to back this up (many venues are not keen on sharing their operating secrets), observation, from what I have been able to access, gives a rough average of 250,000 gil an hour. I have been told that venues first started to appear in around 2014, but I cannot verify that. Instead, we will assume that venues first began with housing back in December 2013.

Fittingly, it is now December, which gives us a clear estimate of a total potential of nine years. It’s likely that hourly gil payments have changed over time, but again, inflation plays a role, so we will assume that this is a constant valuation of 250,000 gil an hour. With 11,232 hours in nine years, and a constant of three hours worked a week, that leaves us with a total of 1,404 hours worked. That is a mere 12.5% of the total time and the payout is 351,000,000 gil.

Not bad, that 351 million is only 0.026% the value of your soul. A small price to pay to help someone else get famous, is it not?

Realistically, though, can your soul, your integrity, really be broken up like that? I would argue that once you begin chipping away at your values and passing them around for anyone to use and abuse, the whole of it is tarnished. The idiom “in for a penny, in for a pound” comes to mind. What does it say about you if you are willing to give so much for so little, after all?

Yet time and time again we see people trying to convince others that by zoning out, by giving away their effort, endorsing the flavor of the week while ignoring the rot in the walls, that living through this type of environment will somehow, someday, translate to a return. “Work for my venue and you will make a lot of gil,” all in service of feeding a DJ viewers so they may someday become a famous streamer.

Are you worth so little that this is acceptable?

Before we continue, I feel I must be honest. I have a bias against the topic of this article. However, I intend to provide substantive reasons beyond my personal disdain for the “DJ Club” scene. If you feel that having an opinion should preclude a person from speaking on a topic, then I suggest you stop reading now.

Bards vs. DJs

I first logged on here in late January 2022. My history with MMOs is trying one out, maybe staying a month or two, then getting bored and looking for something new.

Prior to that, my online experience was limited to Monster Hunter. During my time in Final Fantasy, I was first intrigued by barding as a concept - outside of Zelda, I had not really seen music as something that players could perform in a game. Being addicted to the beauty of song, I quickly took to learning how to be a bard. I started with playing by hand. I would get small gigs here and there, some date nights, some venue jobs, but it wasn’t until I learned how most bards play that I really became swept up in the community.

I taught myself everything I could, crafting everything I played personally, both to be able to open my options and also to stand out. I worked with some bands and played some clubs. I was good enough at what I did that when DJs started to steal the scene, the venue I worked for decided to keep me over replacing me. Still, I remember how it was difficult for the bard community.

Many places that had housed many amazing acts were suddenly strictly DJ spots. Bards lost a lot of interest and many left the game. It was a shame to see, but people were just not that invested in bards anymore, and with no other real purpose to being there, why pay for a subscription? To this day, I still work diligently as a bard, creating hours of new material almost every week. For me, the joy comes from the craft; while I hope that people can hear what I play, it is the end product itself that really keeps me going.

So yes, as a bard I do have some bias against DJs. As someone who has longed for community and cooperation throughout my history online, I feel that DJ Club Culture is hurting these things. But what I feel and what my biases may be are irrelevant without anything to back them up.

What do DJs add to the experience?

Well, in some cases, the people on these streams are contributing to what audio is broadcast. They can mix, though this is not always the case. Inquiries I have made paint a picture that only about 5% of DJs actually do anything for their broadcasts. Without a formal study, though, this is little more than hearsay. Regardless, does that matter? After all, bards are able to play the works of other bards with little to no effort. While this is true, this leads back to the community portion.

If a bard plays another bard’s song, it is still something that has come from the community for the community. Whereas, when a DJ plays Kendrick Lamar or Deadmau5, it’s unlikely that the same case could be made. But does that matter? After all, if you wanted to, you could turn off game sounds entirely and drown yourself in Spotify. The community argument is not particularly strong, at least if I want to convince you that this overreliance on DJs is hurting us. So, instead, let us examine things from a business perspective.

I’ve been to many clubs, and one thing they all have in common is that typically, not including the staff, the number of people watching a DJ’s stream outweighs the number of people in the venue. As someone who has worked in venues before, it would be disingenuous for me to say that they were particularly lively in terms of chatting publicly, but people that came in used party chats and linkshells often.

Further, because you had to be in the venue to enjoy the entertainment, there was an incentive to go out. The biggest complaint I see from venues is that staffing is nearly impossible to maintain. Part of this is that there are a lot of venues, but one of the uncomfortable contributors to this is that those staffing these places are much too bored. Not many people come in, so there isn’t much opportunity to speak with patrons and craft a little story or just engage with people.

Some say that if you’re bored, it’s your fault, you are boring. There is some truth to this, though it’s not entirely accurate in every case. Sometimes shifts in culture can kill interaction.

As a Monster Hunter veteran, I can attest to this. Prior to Monster Hunter World, if you wanted to hunt something, you were required to join a hub of up to 3 people and hope that they would agree to hunt your target. This was done by reciprocating and communicating. If you were a jerk who barged in and tried to commandeer the direction, you would be ignored or even kicked. If you were helpful, though, and maybe spoke a little, it was possible to get what you wanted and more.

I have made some great long-term friends through the old system, as inconvenient as it might have been. The current system lets you start a hunt, call for help, and let random people come in and help quickly. This is nice for getting things done, but it’s rare a conversation goes beyond “o/” or “gg” and that is because the system was changed in a way that limits the usefulness of social outreach.

But what does a system in Monster Hunter have to do with venues in Final Fantasy? Not a lot, at first glance, not without a certain perspective.

Many see venues as businesses, ventures to get some cash, clout, or even fame while maybe gleaning a little fun from it. They expect people to work for less than a percent of their soul’s value so that they might increase their own standing in life. All the while, they lament that no one wants to work, as though there is some huge need to do labor.

Have you ever seen an unemployment check in Eorzea? Probably not, and that would be because this is a game and there is no real need to work. You might WANT money for glams or housing, but if you do nothing you will not die from starvation or get kicked out of your apartment. The only rent housing has is to log on every once in a while, and that function has been turned off all year.

So what incentive is there to keep a job? Why bother going in week after week, giving valuable free time to a cause? Well, perhaps there is loyalty at play, a need to fulfill some bond formed in the past by giving one’s all to make sure a club runs smoothly. Or, more cynically, perhaps a person wants to work and connect to further their own goals of running a venue or becoming a DJ, and thinks that by doing time for someone else it will result in them being successful down the line.

Then there is the final reason, and the one that likely has the biggest impact on your venue’s culture and appeal: Those who go there for fun. The hobbyists, whether into light, heavy, or no roleplay, that go to work with the goal of enjoying the scene and talking with others - these are the people that breathe life into venues. So how do you get them? Why do they get bored with clubs and leave? Why will these people not apply or only show up for a single shift?

It’s not because they are boring. It’s because the club has changed in a way that limits the usefulness of social outreach.

To the venue owners still reading this, who have not clicked away in anger, do you operate like this? Do you place all your chips in on DJs to help you? It may have been the smart move for some short-term gains when they were the hot new thing on the scene, but look at the situation now.

Why should anyone come to your club just because a DJ is there? Seeing a sea of silence as people step back and forth in that all too familiar Golden Saucer dance of choice is not as cool as you might think. I’ve seen many ads with heavy Gposing, framing to make things seem exciting, but we all know the reality. You cannot candy-coat this hollow experience away.

I’ve mentioned this key symptom a few times already, but here it is again: DJ streams have more viewers than your club has patrons. Some of you have picked up on this and stopped including the links to these streams in your Party Finder ads, but the damage is done already. We all know how to search for things. Those who want to hear a DJ can simply look on Twitch, then get back to running that Nier raid for the 900th time for a jacket that looks nice but never drops and then the one time it does you roll a 15 and-

Okay, getting back on track. My point is, if you are a venue owner who has decided to focus on DJs, you are the reason your clubs feel dead. You took the social aspects out of the game. In an attempt to capitalize on a trend, you helped to create a monster that sucks out the life of your place.

If you’re still with me, let me ask, do you do raffles? In my time skulking the shadows, I have seen many clubs drain to staff-only as soon as the big nightly raffle is over. So between people not being there and listening to DJs remotely, and guests only coming in for a chance to win big, what reason do you have for people to come in? Your staff, the only ones left in the club who can be a draw really - they’re not going to stick around if the only people you can bring in are little more than mannequins.

After all, what is there to talk about with someone who only came for a raffle? The select few that actually came in to see the DJ are in the Twitch chat, if anything. Why be in your club?

The funny thing is, this is such an easy fix, but it’s doubtful that at this point anyone would be willing to try it.

Before DJs, venues that did not feel bards matched their musical desires would provide links to things like cytube, which would allow for users to simultaneously listen to a playlist. The introduction of a DJ was a natural progression from this, as a more catered experience that can change with the mood has its appeal. People like the idea of “celebrity.” So why not, instead, a shift towards a controlled song session that encourages venues to actually have a population and engagement, rather than funneling everything to the DJ?

To answer this, we must ask what avenues we have to use. Twitch as a platform encourages people to chase dollars, not experiences. Meanwhile, it’s exceedingly simple to stream a playlist through Discord. As an alternative to pushing people to ignore the venue scene in favor of looking for favor on a Twitch stream, why not host DJs through your venue’s Discord server? While it still adds a layer of disconnect from the game, this is lessened when there are no ads for the Hyundai Holiday Sales Event, and people actually engage with your venue. Ask the next DJ you look to book about it. I am certain their response will be illuminating.

Closing Thoughts

Again, I have to stress, I am not judging. I get it. It made sense at the time to shift in that way. But it no longer makes sense. There are hundreds if not thousands of DJs trying to find work. People are investing real money into this, and not just a few bucks here and there on the Mog Shop.

Whispers are out there that some places are dumping funds into RMT to keep things going because they know that, if they cannot keep the pace of a 600 million gil raffle weekly, they will not have anyone coming out. And the worst part is that the recipients of the prize at the end of it all are these same DJs who have swarmed like locusts. Not a week goes by that I do not see someone begging for more followers to help their “friend” get the ability to run ads and profit.

I have yet to view a DJ who was not selling the same junk mug with a logo slapped on it for $15. And the charity streams, oh the charity streams. It’s always insane to me, going to spy on a charity event and seeing the DJ collectives pull in a profit while they sit with a playlist and the charity donor list stagnates. This might come across like I’m upset they’re making money because of envy, but that is not the case. If this seems unlikely, look at my record. I rarely do anything for gil and have NEVER done anything here for money. This will continue, this is my joyful hobby, much like barding, much like those who take pleasure in working for venues for the social experience.

What bothers me is that DJs are not only complicit but guilty of stripping the community of depth in such a blatant attempt to get rich and famous online.

We’re all paying, at least, $140 a year to be here. The social aspects of the game are certainly the biggest driver for keeping us coming back. Those of us in the venue circle, so many of us, are afraid to say when something is wrong, worried we will become pariahs, outcasts who are doomed to be forever alone in an MMO.

Perhaps this is the case, but would you rather be in that situation because you helped usher out all interaction and reduced the scene to nothing but dancing robots, or because you stood up for the community?

I love this place and part of loving something means having to say “stop it” sometimes. So stop it. Stop allowing the degradation of what makes this place fun, stop pricing things out of reach for everyone, stop letting people use you as a stepping stone so they can be celebrities. The new year is coming. Let us make 2023 a year we actually deserve an award for “Best Community.”