Not to get involved and start anything. But I am still a young guy at 25 and I enjoy playing this game. Problem is this, most big YouTubers like DDG and Phly play it once, then decided it's not a good game, rather go back to War Thunder which is F2P or whenever they buy premium aircraft or whatever and never come back to the game. Most YouTubers go with IL-2 since you just buy it once and that's it. Most people who play these type style games p2p like WOW, or even LoL have put years into those games and enjoy them.
There aren't that many young people like me who would play these games, going with Fortnite, War Thunder, and any War Gaming title. I enjoy this game although I have my moments.
You have to consider what the other titles have on AH. When FSO/Scenarios happen those are Fridays and Saturdays, War Thunder use to have the true historical battles with Allies against Axis, but due to patches with new aircraft/tanks/helicopters/ships they could control. Most people will flock to that in a heartbeat, and join the rush rather than learning over time the true tactics and what to do and not to do.
Also, you have to count for the Milsim games such as Arma which can be setup into a similar setup to what Special Events do, and they can do it anytime they want without a time limit per say of 3 hours (I'm not questioning it, I am ok with the 3 hours no issue.) The way I honestly could see the game staying around would be in a situation/solution as this. Have new arena map set ups to where for example, if people want to play a historical situation or even practice with the training corp of the game, I would say, set up a co-op campaign style arena/map where you can fly against AI as a team in the game like IL-2 can do that is one of the free servers, and if people want to play multiplayer and it's mentioned the price a month on what it will do for the game, then the game will stay longer.
Just my honest .02
