Microtransactions are here to stay. And they are a good thing.

[Gardes]

You know...

1 year sub for one player: 15 x 12 = 180 usd
1 year sub for 500k players: 180 x 500k = 90,000,000 usd
1 year sub for SE's '2 million players': 180 x 2000k = 360,000,000 usd

if average employee pay is 240k/year (lol): 90 mil = 375 employees/year
if average employee pay is 240k/year (lol): 360 mil = 1400 employees/year
current XIV team based on fanfest reveals: seems less than 100 employees or around there
server upkeep per year: way less than employee pay if the gw1 dev reveal is to be believed

Even if my crazy math is way off and we add deductions like exchange rates, people not paying the full sub (legacies, 1character plan, multi month subs etc) and extra costs I still don't see how SE is barely scratching by or how the cash shop is adding so much significant revenue that pissing off a huge portion of your user base is worth all this. Especially considering how the revenue and cost seems to be in tripple digit percentage difference (feels like I'm already overestimating the employee pay).

Unless Yoship and his entourage's first class flights to america, europe, china, korea and local japan flight for all those fanfests and 'fates' are really putting a dent on the profits..

[GalkaBikini]

a huge portion

It's not a huge portion. It's the same people that come to the forums every day, complaining about each and every detail they possibly can about the game. AKA, a tiny microscopic fraction.