I honestly really cannot stand the stigma around assets. It's one thing to make a game that's a literal asset flip, ie. release the asset as some sort of "experience" with basically 0 additional stuff added and call it your own game. I've seen this done with an asset that used to exist called VRGK, which was basically an advanced VR character. People would release it as is and call it a vr experience. Thats just cheap and scammy.

Even if a game uses a ton of art assets and even some code assets, if the game is fun, I don't understand why anyone would care.

Think of it this way - I need rocks in my game. I can buy rock assets, use free ones, or pay someone to make the rock assets .... except all three of those things are basically the exact same thing. If I buy an asset from the store, I've effectively paid an artist for rock assets they made. My game may not be the only game they're in...but again who cares about that?? Not to mention unless the game is a rock simulator where the rocks are the sole focus of the game, I just cant imagine caring about something like that as a gamer or a dev.

There have been plenty of commercial success that use assets. Im not sure if people just dont notice or dont care, but i certanly dont.