Now that you mentioned this, I do recall in the early days of mobile games, back when the App Shops were first introduced, there were games that you would pay somewhere between $1 and $5, and you get the whole thing. No in-app purchases, no ads, and no lotteries for special characters or gear. I remember Square Enix had some really good JRPG games that were made specifically for the iPhone and iPad. Chaos Rings and DrakeRider were two games I recall playing, but they were much more expensive compared to the usual games I found. But, when you paid for it, you got the whole game and all.

I think mobile app developers have realized that they could get more engagement and cash from their users if they made games that had a gambling aspect to it. Kinda like the casinos in Vegas, the house always wins, but you keep putting in money on the hopes you get a jackpot.

That being said, there is one freemium game that I do find quite fun, and that is Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe. The thing that makes this freemium game a bit different is that Square Enix is quite generous in their in-game currency. You can actually do quite well without making any in-app purchases.

Gacha games

Best mobile games are Nintendo DS games that are completely touch based, which end up feeling like native experiences such as Kirby Mass Attack.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grimdev.grimquest

They are out there but I struggle to find good ones.

Because everything sucks now.

The only good new mobile games are on Apple Arcade, which is behind a paywall. It sucks but what can ya do.

Not gonna lie I'm still hitting clash of clans... Paid for maybe 5 months of gold pass but no longer been playing since I was in middle school. Took like 6 years off though

Have they ever been good? The sad thing I can tell you as a mobile dev(not game though) is that people on Android don’t want to pay for apps or games, on iOS it’s a bit better but still way worse than PC or PlayStation. There’s also rampant piracy on Android, both from users but even more so from shady app clones Google ignores. As a result free to play, always online with microtransactions is basically the only way to make money

The good ones are mostly pc ports (dead cells, stardew vally)

At least in Android you can install old games yet, I just installed Nimble Quest and had a blast as of recently.

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