I'd wonder if especially at that point in history, trying to appear as a gaming platform would be a liability.
An early Mac was not a great gaming computer even by 1980s standards, and the last thing you want is Commodore or Atari running an ad saying "Apple's $2500 black-and-white prestige piece doesn't play games as well as a $299 C64/800XL". Not to mention the stink of the US video game market crash hovering around anything game-related.
If they pivot directly towards more professional workstation/publication/art department positions, nobody's making that point. (Now I'm thinking of the time "Boot", or maybe it was already "Maximum PC" by then, reviewed a SGI O2 and said it was impressive, but had limited game selections.)
Quickdraw was revolutionary, it had all the optimizations, and then all the code was in assembly. Things like classic arcade games were very much possible. I had a lunar lander game with side scrolling landscape, a dig dug clone, a variation on donkey kong, and a variant of Robotron. Apple thought that would attract the wrong impression, they wanted the design and typography crowd. Can't say they were wrong, to be honest.