Gaming

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.

You get what you pay for. If you download a free game, then of course it's going to be full of pay-to-win microtransactions. Although there are issues with greed in some larger games run by big companies, the reality is that game devs deserve to earn a living too, and that means at some point a game needs to be paid for.

There are still plenty of good quality mobile games out there, they just don't tend to be free to download. Back when I had more free time, I actually got good usage out of the Play Pass on Android, which was £5 a month and gave me access to a catalogue of excellent mobile games with no microtransactions at all, the vast majority of which were single-player, offline games. Literally the only reason I'm not still subscribed is I just don't have time to play mobile games at the moment - the chances of me subscribing again over the summer when I'm not at uni is high.

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.

Gacha games

Because everything sucks now.

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

Super Auto Pets

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

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

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

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)