problem: lots of people left the game. This is a problem with past retention and cannot be solved even if current retention magically changed to 100%. You may say, isn't this a past problem then? No because low player density is a current problem.
problem: very few new people joining the game
problem: not enough people continuing to play once joining
problem: people are quitting
The things you could examine are; new player recruitment, new player retention, old people retention, player density manipulation
You have identified two problems: Getting new players, and keeping existing players. If we did somehow magically get 100% retention, then I can guarantee you that eventually, all our player density problems would be solved. It may take a while, but we would eventually get to where we wanted to be, if no one ever left.
These are both problems that we know exist. We have identified the problems, and many people have frequently pointed them out. The question isn't "What are our problems?", it's "How can we fix our problems?"
