Reclamation of Inactive Housing announced

[Seryl199]

But I do agree with you, it should have been based on subscription and not on entering the house, but the majority of complaints have been about being "forced to subscribe" so I don't think it would have been any more accepted.

It seems more of culture shock than anything. If people really felt forced to subscribe, they wouldn't really be enjoying the game, so they shouldn't care so much about their estate anyways. However, it is one of the first measures in FFXIV that is actually punitive for unsubscribing. Glamour gears are always relevant, and gear becomes irrelevant at a rapid enough pace that it's easy enough for a returning player to catch up, facilitating a dynamic that makes it easy for players to drop the game and jump back into it at a later time.

The reclamation effort, however, adds a definitive measure of permanence to unsubscribing, where your house is demolished, you are (generously) refunded 80% of your gil and given (less generously) 35 days to reclaim some potentially very valuable furniture, and some items can be lost in the process. It adds actual consequence to unsubscribing, something that this game is rather unfamiliar with. It discourages and entirely excludes all but the most frequent subscribers from owning property. The limited availability and permanence of housing make it available only to a limited number of permanent residents, making people feel "forced to subscribe" because housing has become some of the most limited and simultaneously punitive content in the game.

[Tyrn]

you are (generously) refunded 80% of your gil and given (less generously) 35 days to reclaim some potentially very valuable furniture, and some items can be lost in the process.

The actual valuable furniture can't be recovered and you're likely to lose more gil in destroyed furniture than the house cost you to begin with, I'd be less upset with the very short time limit if we got all our furniture back.