Quote Originally Posted by Juxtaposition View Post
One game makes SE money.
The other game costs SE money.
This. This this this this this.

The problem with FFXIV, is that the MMO scene is very different than when FFXI was released. Regardless of what SE does to the game, it will never be able to achieve the sort of popularity that they had expected it to reach on release. A majority of the people who SE was trying to target are going to play the game once, hate it, quit, and forget it even existed. All the updates in the world won't change that.

Regardless of the flaws that FFXI had upon release, the game was welcomed and it had a very strong user base on release. That's how it was able to maintain popularity regardless of fundamental gameplay issues.