This launch is a mess.

[Floppyjo]

if that is the case they could not sell any more products or allow account activations once the amount of accounts grew to more than they can handle, which means it would not exist at all anymore and not have had now 4 expansions in the past 8 or so years. Though the idea of the bus tickets is a similar idea it is not the case and here is why. there were X (say 4000) of the physical collector's editions available. in your scenario if they sold more than they have available you are 100% correct unless they said hey there was an error and those in excess of the amount in order of time would get that money refunded. but digital content is not limited untill the ACCOUNT DATABASE is full, which generally will be a huge number. it is when the account database gets full and crashes that is when they should have acted before. but till then, the amount of accounts and expansions purchased does not matter because not everyone generally will be running and signing on except during times like this. the game grew in popularity for the last 4-6 years and in the past year skyrocketed and there was no way to anticipate Blizzard coming under fire for deplorable work conditions and leaks that the gms hated the players (high ups) and didn't care what happened with the players if they came or went they expected if one left two or more would take their place till one leaves again and they again expected 2 or more to take their place. The time was right for a mass exodus because of these two factors since the game play had been stale for a while (because of the latter of the above) people left, what did they find out there? FF14 still holding strong and growing so people told people that told people. and in 2020 finally they came in droves and by then we were already well into the run on computers and servers because of pandemic and then the chip shortage. nothing could be done at that point. so NO there is nothing like a cap that has been reached and if it was set that way then the game would NEVER survive or GROW

Stop gaslighting, most of what you have said doesn't make sense. Your account database presumption is meaningless here. Just because a computer can create records to an insane number, doesn't mean that there is no cap on account codes. No competent business designs an accounts system that continues to take purchases in excess of the inventory on hand, this is common business accounting.

The word is "forecasting", many business models across all industries, especially in consumer services rely on this, daily. They knew ahead of release that this was going to be an issue, we know this because they told us so, if you research communication prior to EA. They should have stopped and said, "Listen, we want to provide the best service. We know what will bring the experience into the red, because we are professionals and we cannot compromise the experience for those who got in first. As at this time we are "All out of stock"". Just like every other business does when their products run out.

If you have been playing in the month prior to EA, you would be aware that you have been in a queue almost every time you have tried to log in for the last month, and this is when Endwalker isn't even live yet. The company would be even more aware of this. They would also have the ability to identify the numbers for purchases of the expansion and which of those expansion upgraded accounts were online and which were not. This would tell them who was waiting for release to resub after making the expansion purchase(forecasting), there is no way they were unaware that they sold more than they were capable of serving as stated. Your misunderstanding of digital goods is flawed. I also work in a digital goods and services industry for internet services and there are policies and processes in place to check for "service availability". We don't sell digital services to people where they cannot use the product.

The conversation about blizzard and growing population, etc ... all off on a tangent. They already told us well in advance that there was going to be a queue's issue. We know they were aware months in advance that their population has increased without the expansion even landing because of the Blizzard exodus. They had mnore than enough time to make changes to accomodate this, including pushing the release date back until they were in a position to provide the service.

There is a cap, you saying there isn't one when all logic, reason and decades of digital services business practices show this to be the norm across the world, won't make your fantasy any truer. You don't seem to understand accounting, supply and demand and provisioning in the digital sector very well.

Get a job at an ISP in the networking or provisioning side of the business, this will help you understand.