The problem isn't the game, it's the community. People play for insane amounts of time(as Lunar said) on a game that just launched. This is already more content than most single player games have. People are just too impatient to wait for more content and have no clue how much time/money/manpower it takes to make it.

And the odds of this going f2p are very slim. Not only did Yoshi say that he would shut the servers down before considering f2p, but this game is developed in house. It has all the same criteria that has kept every other long lasting MMO alive. A previous fan base + no outside investors to have to answer to if things look bad. As long as they break even they could keep this game running for a decade.