Multiple things:
- A lot of mobile games include ridiculous micro transactions
- a lot are copy paste concepts or are missing game depth and complexity (comparable with Minesweeper or Solitaire)
- the standard input device (touch) is not great for traditional games developed for physical button games
There are definitely exceptions to the problems, but I haven’t found a mobile game yet that catches me for 100h.
Not from the us but scientific research is usually very costly . They need funding to stay at the technological edge and therefore accept funding and therefore do some “shady” studies or whatever strings you might imagine.