Same old story, someone makes a game it's massively popular, then every dev known to man trys to make there own take on it and you end up with a ton of unwanted games that fall flat on there face on day 1.
So I expect a wise move it might not have been in the managements mind that it was anything other than a money sink, while some company's leaders are clueless many company's do actual have people in place that know there job.