I don't recall ever getting to the leaderboard on Ms. Pacman in my youth. I get it today, but that's mostly because kids these days suck at the game and the leaderboards are empty.
Case in point: the most OG game was probably Whack-a-mole, in existence in some form since the early 1900s. There's no leaderboard: you play the game because its fun. Sometimes there are prizes, but more often than not, its just an arcade booth sitting by itself with a few quarters and a hammer.
Arcade games of the 80s were similar: Ms. Pacman, Missile Command, etc. etc. were just short burst games to take up time while your parents shopped elsewhere in the mall.
By the 90s, arcade games began to have longer, more cohesive stories. You could theoretically get to the end of "Simpsons" or "TMNT", but more often than not... people put a quarter or two for the first level, died, and moved on with their life. Its there just for fun and pure enjoyment.
Of course these shallow experiences are reproduced on mobile nowadays. Match-3 games were a staple of all gaming generations and even reached some depth (Puzzle Quest) before they completely moved to mobile in the form of exploitative skinnerware.