Quote Originally Posted by Kallera View Post
Yes, they are a potential audience that SE wants to win back with the release of ARR.

Apart from that, it is a testing phase. They aren't looking for "who is worthy??" Type stuff because it is just to test out new features of the game and performance. It is not the full product.
The thing is however that alpha isn't where you want to show off the game. The main point of alpha is to stress test the game and find and game breaking bugs/mechanics. Anyone who was or was not an active FFXIV player can help achieve this for them.

I am just led to believe that people were picked entirely by random (active or not) and I don't believe a priority system exists for the Alpha.