Horn is pretty neat but I guess its 12 years old now
Baba is You isn’t originally a mobile game but it has a native version which is pretty excellent
To answer your question, its as others have mentioned: catching a whale is more lucrative than appealing to the average consumer. The entire micro transactions industry (which mobile gaming is built upon and makes it the most profitable portion of the gaming industry by a mile) is all about milking your customers for everything they have without them realising it. Why did we reach this point? Unregulated capitalism, probably.
Journey is one of the most sublime works of art in the video games medium. I have it tattooed on half my fucking arm.
I got similar feelings of awe from Citizen Sleeper. They’re vastly different games, but they both blew me away for what the “games as an art form” could be.
It was my understanding that the embroidery/pattern changes were based on how many times you had completed the game, but your point stands that it’s easy to tell a first timer