I'm pretty sure the Census has proven the above account of this game being dead anytime soon, to be false. People will continue to play this game, regardless. However, what I will agree on is that if SE wants to see more people play, they have to come out with a new expansion of new content, new areas, new mobs, new quests, missions, storylines. The players are getting restless, but if SE went to a free to play model.... that would not do anything good for the game. That would basically be SE admitting defeat, because if you can tell me games that go to free to play and then come out with massive expansions to entertain its customers. I'll be shocked.
People whine about Abyssea killing the game and such, yet as I've told my friends before, the sooner you accept that this content is what the game is now, much as the transition from CoP content to ToAU content, the better. The problem is a lot of the hardcores originate from the ToAU era, and have no idea how much of a change that content inflicted on the game when people would say "ToAU killed the game! Booo hooo me this game is going to suck and no one will play it!" Yet look.... the game is still around. The more you want to gripe about the game, the more you will be unhappy, but if you suck it up and deal with it as many of us hardcores that have been playing since NA release have, you'll find that AByssea can be enjoyable. Times change, and so does the manner in which things are done. The game is still challenging, and still takes a massive time commitment (I'm sorry but if you've tried to skill up defensive skills and 3-5 weapons.... you know that Abyssea doesn't remedy every hardship of this game). So again, this game by no means should be free to play, and if it is, then people advocating for it will realize how much of a folly they have aided in when they realize this game die in terms of new content and receive treasure casket revamps, and mob distribution revamps from that point until the end of the servers. Thank you.