Why pay a subscription?

[Sidious]

Contrary to what you hardcore players think -- most people aren't hardcore and won't spend their entire waking life trying to raid with 40 people and spending countless hours obtaining gear.

Yes they will. And the proof is in the pudding: People *did* stick around. Something that can't be said for your ultra-casualized iterations of the game.

Vanilla: +5 million subs
TBC: + 6 million (11 million total)
Wotlk: +1 million (12 million total)
Cata: -3 million (9 million total)
MoP: -2 million in less than a year (~7 million total).

These are all official numbers released during Blizzard's investor conference calls. It's all in their archives, feel free to double check.

By your logic, every new casual feature that WoW introduces would send subs skyrocketing. And yet they haven't been able to post a single positive quarter in years. At one point they were even giving D3 away for free if you agreed to sub to WoW, and they STILL had a net loss in subs.

Casual players don't actually want a casual game. They just lack the foresight to know otherwise.

That said, I work a full time job and I play casually. Always have, even in WoW. But I refuse to lump myself in with them because their ideas are cancerous.