It was in the early days of the Apple App Store. Games were 59p to buy. No in-app purchases and were generally good indie titles. "Helsing's Fire" comes to mind. Miss that game!
I played the original Plants vs Zombies back in the day and thought it was pretty good. I got a new tablet recently and decided to try out the latest version - and holy fuck it is significantly worse. Rather than trying to be a good game, every possible aspect has been monetized.
So yeah, I'd say the early 2010s was a time where you could at least find some good stuff that wasn't ruined by enshitification.
Exactly. I played a lot of mobile games in the early 2010s, and have avoided mobile games since. There were some bangers back then that really weren't that expensive.
Well, it is kinda true. Many old games I had on my phone that were free and didn't have ads, in the last few years have received updates to do literally nothing, but include ads. So "these days" is the case for some.