I dunno, the BSD distribution included a wide gamut of games along with the kernel source in the same tree. In fact, NetHack is derived from Hack which itself is derived from Rogue, which was distributed within BSD. And BSD represented a cross-organization responsibility (see the history of AT&T and BSD).
Wasn't it because it was the same group of people who worked on both? And when it ceased to make sense, the games were split off - the only remaining ones in FreeBSD are things like banner(6) or pom(6).
