Saying that "We can play because of whales, we should be happy because of that" is stupid af. There is bunch of games that have really fair business model (Path of Exile for example). BnS had really big opportunity to have a lot of players but they destroyed that because of:
1. Not listening community
2. Unbalanced gameplay + mixing pvp with pve
3. P2W elements
What if they would instead of focusing on item shop and how to milk more money, Focus on balancing game, listening community and adding only outfits, pets, particles, and other visual shits which will make you vomit rainbow on f10 like PoE do? ITs not even a problem to test this out. Doesnt work and players quit? Alright then maybe lets milk whales only.
Im playing since alpha test, I was a leader of one of the biggest guilds on start, I meet a lot of ppl and I know why they was leaving the game. 3 pointed things which I meant above.