Why do Vanity items / Player housing / Pets exist?

[BlazeChronic]

I agree with OP.

ARPGs don't have any of that useless stuff and they do just fine, as a genre. There's hundreds of other places where the resources would be better spent, but unfortunately we have to contend with a crowd that wants to collect pets and build houses. Unfortunately for us, there are many people who want that kind of stuff, so they need to dedicate time and money to it. It sucks, but that is what it has come to, in 2013. People rather build houses and collect useless crap then go kill monsters, which is the essence of a Final Fantasy game. Of course, detractors will somehow find a way to invalidate my point, but it is the absolute truth.

Final Fantasy is about exploring, killing monsters, leveling up and gearing your character, not building a house. You cannot deny that. It has been that way since FF1 in 1985. Just because WoW or some other trash game does something, doesn't mean it should find its way into ARR. But we have to live with it now, since that's what "gamers want".

EDIT: I will admit I used the house in XI, being able to grow your own stuff was awesome (millioncorns all day). BUT, it's implementation was very limited, and wasn't as much of a strain on the devs/servers because it was basically like your inn room. An implementation like that, I would be content with. What they are planing is overkill, IMHO.

Of course, detractors will somehow find a way to invalidate my point, but it is the absolute truth.

stuff

Thanks for proving my point. And to answer your question, because the developers efforts would be better spent fixing the myriad of issues that affect the entire playerbase rather than catering to your selfish narcissism.