I am asking you SE to consider a free to play option in addition to subscription model. In today's PC market the majority of MMOs and other action RPG type games are free to play. Take a look at Guild Wars 2, Star Wars the Old Republic, Aion, Everquest 2, Lotro, Diablo 3, League Of Legends, Phantasy Star Online 2, DC Univerise online, the list goes on.

The market today really won't support a paid only MMO. With so many free to play MMOs out there some where devs spent millions on like Star Wars. Why would someone pick up FFXIV when they have to buy it and pay a sub fee?

With free to play + micro transaction model some people will be inclined to buy funny hats, unique looking armor, weapons, mounts, exp boosts they will actually end up spending more money then like 10 subscribers.

A much larger playerbase will be attracted due to not having such a high barrier to entry which would be the monthly fee which in today's economy many people would not even consider paying.

A majority of games who may be Final Fantasy fans would skip FFXIV:ARR just because there is a monthly fee tided to it. However if they feel like they are not being forced to pay monthly and only buy stuff on the game store if they feel like it you can actually get more people to try the game and buy stuff. If you check out comments on gaming sites like Gamestop, IGN, Kotaku the biggest complaint you see about FFXIV when it comes up is that there is a monthly fee.

I keep a lot of F2P games installed on my hard drive and play them every so often. Same can't be said for MMOs that require a fee.

I would consider at least taking a look into the free to play model and what it can do for you.