NOV 10th. That date sounds so familiar...

[Gaddes]

So you want a forced retention mechanic?
Seriously, it's not the end of the world. If they've been gone 400+ days, then they were gone a LONG time ago, and you can't blame the expansion on it. Maybe MMOs aren't for them. Maybe *this* MMO isn't for them? Find a new FC or go play what they're playing. Quit trying to play the blame game.
When I left for close to 6 weeks after Skyrim launched, I came back. Why? Because the game I was playing at the time(both wow and EQ2) were good for me at the time. Taking breaks is good. Same reason you take a damn vacation from your job or school

I can see what they're saying about losing subs though. Even though Yoshida said it was something either expected or accepted, it's a little weird to me that they're ok with people unsubbing. Most companies don't want to lose paying customers, and there's the danger that people who temporarily unsub may end up just staying unsubbed (that's what happened to me with FFXI and I never ended up coming back). It's bizarre from a business standpoint to be ok with losing money like that. For the person themselves, taking breaks is good... but the business makes no money from that person during that absence.

In the long term, these hits to their profits are chipping away at the game. That's that much less money for development... which may not seem like that much of a hit right now, but as these "breaks" increase, there'll be less money coming in as time goes on. I've personally seen people either in my FC or in-game friends that have just disappeared, and these are people who hadn't done so before. Will they come back? Who knows.

You'd think it'd be in their best interests in terms of profit to always keep people subbed, since as the others mentioned, having people unsub, even temporarily, can cause some pretty big hits to the remaining subbed players' morale, and that can cause chain reactions of other people growing dissatisfied and quitting as well.