Don’t be overdramatic. It’s a good game, certainly above average. Just because it’s not the game you expected it to be doesn’t make it terrible. This reminds me of the ridiculous hyperbole surrounding Cyberpunk 2077, that it was a terrible game, even “one of the worst games of all times”, because it wasn’t the second coming of Christ either, just a good RPG with teething issues.
That’s why Sega was so notorious for shutting down fan projects as well in the past (they have since softened their stance however, provided projects are non-commercial), although I don’t think it’s the entire story. Sony lost against the groundbreaking Bleem! emulator back in the PS1 days and I’m not aware of them being litigious in this regard since.
Epic pays flat fees, not per download or play. The latter two would be too risky and could be manipulated, whereas flat fees are safe and predictable. For a title as large as Control, they probably handed over to a few millions - or in other words, perhaps a couple of hours worth of Fortnite revenue.
Hi Fi Rush had 3 million players, including Game Pass. Starfield had over 12 million players, including Game Pass. It was one of the most successful releases last year, the single best selling game in the US the month it came out. That’s not what tanking looks like.
No experience with the system; I just stuck a controller cradle to my phone instead and am using a Steam Deck for more serious mobile gaming, but there are a few obvious games that should work with it:
Pixel Dungeon and its many variations: Incredibly hard, seemingly unfair roguelike, but there’s a system to the madness and you can figure its very systemic gameplay out with lots of patience. Shattered Pixel Dungeon is the most popular variant.
Mindustry: Popular open source clone of Factorio. I think you’ll need to fiddle with it to get the controller portion of your device to work with it (your device might have a built-in tool for this).
Minetest: Open source Minecraft clone and a pretty decent one.
To be perfectly honest, the open source gaming scene is pretty small and among the few games there are, even fewer are both available for Android and make sense on your device.
You should however look into source ports, in addition to emulation, of which there is a bewildering variety (disclaimer: I have not checked if any of these require more processing power than your device can provide):
ZDoom: Should be obvious what this is for.
idTech4A++: Allows you to play DOOM III, Quake 4, Prey (2006) and, I think, a bunch of mods on Android.
OpenMW: Open source engine for Morrowind. May come with the risk of never putting the device down ever again.
OpenLara: As the name implies, this one allows you to play Tomb Raider 1-4. Comes with lots of neat enhancements, although it obviously doesn’t go as far as the new remaster of the trilogy for PC and consoles.
BuildGDX: For Build Engine games like Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior.
Keep in mind that only those with an Android icon are for Android and that not all of them are suitable for a device with a screen this small (SCUMMVM for old Lucas Arts adventure games doesn’t make a lot of sense, for example).
The graphics I actually really liked, because of how similar they looked to Mafia, which ran on the same engine and shared a number of assets with it, including textures and animations.
I had no idea the multiplayer was still going. Are you still playing the game? Got any favorite mods or other tips for someone who might have an interest in trying this game again? For all of its faults, I’m tempted to give it another go.
Hidden and Dangerous was made free to promote the second game. It’s interesting, but it was already extremely outdated and clunky by the time the sequel came out in 2003. I can’t imagine time having been kind to it in the 21 years since. AI in particular is horrid in both games in the series, to the point of sabotaging much of the enjoyment one might have otherwise gotten out of these.