I've done a couple mobile games. One I had priced at 99 cents. Got 200 downloads. A couple years later, I change the price to free. Hundreds of thousands of downloads, no change to the game.

Then you put ads into the free version and an in app purchase that gets rid of the ads for 99 cents.

I think the platforms have a part to play in this. They would be more incentivised to promote a F2P game with in app purchases (of which they get a 30% cut) over a game that doesn't include them but might ask for a few bucks up front.

They still get a 30% cut on sales afaik, so if someone spends $10 on a F2P game or $10 on a premium game, the platform gets the same cut. What actually happens is that more people play the F2P game, and some people spend a lot on those microotransactions, so the company gets more money out of a F2P game model than a premium game.

People just don't seem willing to commit on mobile, while they are on desktop. It's weird, but I feel like $10 is cheap for a desktop game, but expensive for a mobile game, so I expect a lot more out of a mobile game than a desktop game at the same price. Perhaps it's a graphics thing, IDK.

Unfortunately, that model seems to be getting quite popular on desktop as well, with tons of games offering "loot boxes" and cosmetics using in game currencies. I avoid those games like I avoid that model on mobile, but for some reason people are choosing that model on desktop as well.

but they also get 30% cut on the initial price of a premium game, so they're only incentivised to push f2p cause customers are more willing to spend & (on average) spend more on them.