I gotta be honest to the people that think there's no "Hardcore" market. I would say that FFXI fell under that description, and surely Eve Online does. Guess what? FFXI had a steady 500K players for YEARS, and that's a low estimate. Guess what? When Abyssea was released, that number quickly fell to 300K, was it because people felt there was casualization? Maybe, or it could've been old. I stopped playing FFXI because Abyssea ruined it for me, personally.

Eve online, one of the most hardcore MMOs on the market, enjoys quite a number of subscribers itself, last best estimate was 600,000 subscribers. Is it WoW? No, but it's more than enough to keep the content coming and the players happy, all while keeping the company in the black.

That said, I honestly feel casual players are fickle, they go to the next shiny thing after they get bored quite quickly, it's actually the hardCORE players that keep a MMO going.