Yes, we should be paying to play this game.

FF14 has been free to play for many months now, during this time there has been hundreads of employees on the payroll, taking resources from Square Enix instead of the money we are paying for the game. Keep in mind that the people being employeed to develop a game, in the majority are qualified professionals who are taking home a decent pay check.

Granted, we and lots of others have paid for the game or even the collectors edition and therefore we have put money into the company. However this is mainly paying those who created the game to begin with and is not providing the money for the new staff and therefore the game is sapping money out of SquareEnix.

Put yourself in the shoes of the board of directors in SquareEnix, they know that money is being sapped out of the company to fund a failed game, if no money comes out of the game then the game is useless to the company. If our subscriptions pay for some of the staffing then the game is likely to continue. If no funds are drawn from the customers, then all the company has to go off is the promise that the PS3 release and version will bring enough customers to make a profit.

Personally, I do not play this game much; however I will be subscribing. As a Software Engineer, I admire the companies stance on trying to remake the game and not to abondon their customers and fanbase. But from what I have seen in the improvements in the game and after seeing what promises have been fulfilled, I look forward to path towards version 2.0 and wish for the game's success.