These are usually weapons and armor, but can extend to more unique rewards like minions and Orchestrion Rolls too.
How Do I Know If An Item Is Market Prohibited?
Hover over it in your inventory or character screen. At the bottom of the vast wall of text that usually accompanies weapons and armor, there’ll be the words “Market Prohibited” at the bottom, nearer to the right. This represents an item that cannot be sold on the Market Board. You might be wondering what the point in this is – well, there are some rewards that would lose a bit of value if they could just be sold to the highest bidder. For example, the 2B Automaton from the Nier-inspired raids is a bit of a status symbol. Would players be as driven to complete the raids if they could simply buy the reward outright? Probably not. It also prevents players from reselling cash shop items for an in-game profit, protecting Square’s revenue streams. Sure, there are some items you can buy for real cash and sell for gil. But the vast majority of the glamour items will be Market Prohibited.
What Kind Of Market Prohibited Items Are There?
Weapons, armor, minions, Orchestrion Rolls, accessories. You may find that a majority of the rewards you get from trials and raids will be Market Prohibited – players are supposed to go out and win these items fair and square. That’s not to say you can’t buy any of the above items from the Market Board – quite the opposite, really. There are plenty of cool minions and useful gear/glamour upgrades available. Some will be locked behind a piece of content forever, though – so you’ll have to clear it the old fashioned way if there’s something you really want. If an item is not Market Prohibited but still cannot be sold, it may be Spiritbonded. Spiritbonding is a process that begins when you earn experience with a piece of gear equipped. When an item is fully Spiritbonded, it can be turned into Materia. In this case, either complete the Materia Extraction or sell it to an NPC if you can’t be bothered. But if you’d like to see a comprehensive list of all the Market Prohibited Items just check out this link.
How Do I Get Rid Of Market Prohibited Items?
Thankfully, these items aren’t just stuck in your inventory forever. You’d run out of space pretty quickly if that was the case! There are quite a few uses for them, although none of them are going to make you the profit you might like. First things first: you can pretty much always sell these items to NPC vendors. Since items sold to these vendors just disappear into the ether, they don’t have any impact on the in-game economy (or Square’s purse strings). You’ll be rewarded with a token amount of gil and some free inventory space. Do you have any other jobs/classes you’d like to level down the line? Would that Market Prohibited gear be useful to them? If so, it might be worth storing it for a rainy day. Market Prohibited gear of certain qualities can be turned in at your Grand Company in exchange for Company Seals. Company Seals can be exchanged for a number of useful things, such as ranking up in your Grand Company, retainer ventures, and crafting materials. This can often be a much more worthy use for your Market Prohibited Items, as the amount of gil you get from vendors is rarely significant. Of course, if all else fails, you can just trash the item – there’s no “Garbage Prohibited” modifier, after all. Sometimes it’s best to just throw it out and move on. Don’t hoard everything!
