Quote Originally Posted by Ath192 View Post
SE has an insane fear of developing an MMO that can be played 24/7 for fear of people becoming addicted and losing their real lives. The warning messages in XI and 1.0, as well as their punishment system in 1.0 made this obvious, wherein if you played too much you couldn't progress anymore. This crucial fear hampers them from producing a game at its full potential and also fails at keeping people from becoming addicted to this crippled MMO and or other things.

In other words, it doesn't prevent anything and it could be much better. But yes, indeed, the solution is to play this as a side piece for as long as it entertains you.

As a single play through story game this is an 8/10, as a game as a live service this game is a 3/10. Categorically awful to play year round and pay the sub the whole time.
I wouldnt say it was just because of fear of addiction, while I believe its partially true considering even back in FFXI, the launcher always had thay warning message to play sparingly.

But its also most likely that people have started to move on from obvious grindy retention systems where it turns the game into a job. Thats probably a major part for why FFXIV lacks longer retention content.