I think what's happening is that they found out that instead of making real compelling content, they would just get their customers addicted to gambling. So they got used to a higher revenue stream that also allowed them to fire all of their highly skilled content creators.
It's kind of like if a drug company discovered they could get a lot of money by selling heroin and then they fired all of their chemists who were busy trying to create drugs that would actually be helpful to society.
Now that they're being called out on it, they're scrambling to try and find a way to avoid having to go back to working for a living.
A responsible adult would say something like, "You know, we thought that we were simply giving the market what it wanted, but really it does look a lot like gambling when you think about it. We're taking it all out."
And if they wanted to turn those lemons into lemonade, "Oh, by the way, we're releasing half life 3 and portal 3. It's the same game. Oh and we're releasing a Cave Johnson miniseries. J. K. Simmons is reprising his role."
Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work. But it also sounds like it's providing real entertainment value to society instead of selling electronic heroin to kids.