It seems SE sees apartments as Housing

[Jojoya]

I think the biggest problem that SE has is a lack of personnel that have a firm grasp on the intricacies of human nature. I've said this before and I will say it again, it's basic human instinct to want some place to call home, even if it's within a virtual environment. The moment SE opened up personal housing, it lit a fire in the hearts and minds of a good many players. A fire that can't be easily put out. A fire that won't be dimmed by the rather lackluster offering of the poor substitute that apartments currently are. And, by the way, I can think of another bit of functionality that houses have over apartments. You can have additional tenants for your house and those people can make use of the items placed in that house. I would love to have people over to my apartment and serve them meals that they can actually eat. It may be RP fluff, but then, that is a lot of what houses are about.

They've provided players with a place to call home - apartments.

It's not a lack of understanding of human nature. Housing is perceived differently in JP than in the US. Unless you're living with family (parents and/or children), you most likely will be living in an apartment in Japan. If you're living in one of the more heavily populated areas like Tokyo and are single, you may even be living in a boarding room.

Houses in Japan are much smaller on average than houses in the US (1400 sq ft versus 2200 sq ft).

Culturally, we're always striving to get more in the US instead of learning to be satisfied with "enough".

It goes far in showing why the developers may not see the housing system as the problem that we see it to be, especially with many of us used to western MMOs that have done housing very differently. But considering how much work they've put into the game to make it more appealing to the western audience and not just a JP audience, they really need to take that into account when it comes to the housing system. House ownership is very important in the US ("the American Dream") and so it's natural that NA players are looking to buy houses in game, not apartments. It's a way to fulfill the dream when it might be financially out of reach in real life.

(I don't know how EU residents view housing so better for them to speak for themselves on the issue. Are houses also the standard there regardless of familial status or are they more likely to settle for living in apartments like JP?)

[YukikoKurosawa]

Culturally, we're always striving to get more in the US instead of learning to be satisfied with "enough".

It's a video game. Apartments just flat out suck due to a lack of features, a lack of space, and a lack of customizability. You are effectively calling us pissed off over the housing situation in this game "entitled" for wanting actual non-garbage housing systems for those unlucky 99% of players who fail to get a house in this system.

I don't care if apartments are how Japan sees housing. This is a video game. This not real life. Housing is an ADVERTISED core feature of this game. As it stands only a tiny few percentage of the playerbase can experience actual acceptable housing and experience all the features to the fullest. Everyone else is relegated to garbage, tiny little instanced boxes that fundamentally lack not just space but critical features of housing.

It's crap. As a game feature, it's crap. And I'm sick of hearing these mental-gymnastics used to excuse it. Apartments fundamentally suck as "housing" and there's zero excuse for not allowing everyone to get full sized, full-feature houses through sufficient investment into the game.