You are saying "anti-marketing" but what this really means is that they are putting less investment into production values than you prefer.
The whole point is that it is doubtful that they will stay solvent if they put more money into production values on that platform.
Nice graphics are very expensive. (They are more expensive than any other aspect of game development, in fact). If it seems unlikely that enough people will buy their game given that type of investment, then it may be a good choice to stay away from that.
On top of which, maybe they just don't want to spend all their time doing graphics. Maybe they want to work on the story / world / etc.
I would consider production values part of marketing (a vital part) - they are competing only on PC without the marketing/production values being an issue - iPad is not a platform they can do that with. I don'et think they are necessarily wrong to step away from th iPad from a business perspective, just saying very different audience customer retention strategy and maybe not suited to them.
The whole point is that it is doubtful that they will stay solvent if they put more money into production values on that platform.
Nice graphics are very expensive. (They are more expensive than any other aspect of game development, in fact). If it seems unlikely that enough people will buy their game given that type of investment, then it may be a good choice to stay away from that.
On top of which, maybe they just don't want to spend all their time doing graphics. Maybe they want to work on the story / world / etc.