It's based on the platform. Nobody would've bat an eye at a Switch or PC game for an upfront cost, but asking 10$ for a mobile game was kinda unheard of. I think they misjudged the market response there.
I can't say I'm not biased here, I basically hate 95% of all the mobile games I ever tried, or at least stopped playing after an hour - so a 10$ purchase for me would simply never happen, because I don't like the platform. On the other hand I did do the "paid unlock" after trying it out for a few. (Ignore this if they had a demo, I never tried it, wasn't it iphone only?)
> but asking 10$ for a mobile game was kinda unheard of
Ironically, this used to be the norm when the iPhone's app store came out. For example, Super Monkey Ball was $10 in 2008. Over time, there was a race to the bottom, and then F2P became the norm when Apple introduced IAP.
I can't say I'm not biased here, I basically hate 95% of all the mobile games I ever tried, or at least stopped playing after an hour - so a 10$ purchase for me would simply never happen, because I don't like the platform. On the other hand I did do the "paid unlock" after trying it out for a few. (Ignore this if they had a demo, I never tried it, wasn't it iphone only?)