Quote Originally Posted by Noahlimits View Post
You do realize Square Enix itself has shareholders, right? They can view servers merging or population dropping as failure depending on the incoming revenue. And they do have a say on what happens within the company, FFXIV included.

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/faq.html
Again, FFXIV is not in the same boat as 95% of all the other MMO out there that actually have to listen to shareholder *demands* and implement them regardless of what the main company says.

Look at all the companies out there that have made a mess of things strictly because of shareholders. Lets just throw out the MMO name LOTRO as a perfect example, for instance. Or GW2.... How's SWTOR doing after being forced to go F2P. I really shouldn't have to go on at this point.

The main thing is, the shareholders SE does have don't have much real input about getting things forced into/onto the game. SE holds the control. Sure if enough investors tell SE they would like to see a certain thing or another, they may try to accommodate but SE will never be forced into implementing something it doesn't want to.