I feel like the game's descending sub count and (probably) lower mogstation sales as a result, caused some shareholder to demand an explanation/scapegoat, and so they blamed the biggest mod on their radar, issued a C&D, and called it a day. Then people got pissed and began review bombing them on Steam, so they drafted this long winded letter to try and appease folks and provide these weird "definitely not profit driven" motives, and act like they were just out here doin' it for some sensitive raider that doesn't exist. And of course the ideological inconsistencies are full on display: like OP mentioned, if player feelings, character tracking, and forcing people to partake in something they don't want are such a big deal, then yeah, there should be an fflogs discussion. But there won't be, because none of those things actually matter to anyone. At the end of the day, fflogs keeps the competitive ones playing, and there's no way to argue that it negatively impacts the cash shop, so even though it intersects with a lot of the problems mentioned in that dev letter, it won't be touched or discussed.
Just think about it from a profit motive. They're a company, after all. Once you look at it from a moneymaking standpoint, the inconsistencies in logic fade away and everything stops seeming so disjointed and confusing. Like, they literally killed a thing people used to enjoy outfits together, and then dropped a cash shop sale a week later, lol. They're not interested in raider feelings; they just want your money and feel like they haven't gotten enough of it lately. Even in that same letter, he hints at "toooootally not wanting to raise sub rates," but that they will have to if revenue is down and then subtly blames mods for it lol. Legit, people can waste time arguing about what he "really" meant all they want, but I'd bet you $20 that the C&D was reactionary and all of this is just more reactionary damage control.


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