The way I see it...
First off, exactly how much money VMK was making was probably very hard to track. Most promotions are. But VMK wasn't just a promotion. It was a promotion that was being promoted through other products (The Kellogs' Pirate codes and minigames, for example), and had several little perks that increased the sales of products it wasn't even promoting (Examples: Having VMK items in the Disney Movie Rewards programs, the Stitch hat from taking a Disney cruise, etc. etc.) It was near impossible to tell the difference who was buying what solely because of VMK, because they wanted it anyway and the VMK items sealed the deal, and who was buying the products solely because they wanted to and was unaffected by VMK's influence in it. Because of this, it could have very easily seemed VMK was a complete failure when it might have been raking in loads of money.
They could have just as easily sold VMK's quest cards as stand-alone products if they really wanted VMK to succeed, but the reasons as to why they didn't are beyond me.
Secondly, the biggest reason as to why VMK closed actually might not have been money, but because it didn't fit in. Around the time VMK closed, a new team was instated to take charge of Disney's online worlds. This team foolishly decided the best course of action was Quantity over Quality, something VMK obviously contradicted.
Combine this with the fact that this new team (like any new team in the video game industry) wanted to make a name for themselves and reshape the environment they were given as their own, and thus would have wanted to get rid of any MMOs with third party involvement (Such as VMK and it's help from Sulake) as well as anything they didn't have the power to change directly (After all, Yavn was the Creative Director of VMK. Any changes made to the game itself had to go through him first), and you can see why this could have easily lead to VMK's undeserved closure.
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I will walk heavy, and I will walk strange.
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