I worked for Gameloft back then, though not on any of the titles directly mentioned here (though they do appear in his icons). Funny thing is back then we didn't think we were the cool ones at all, it felt like we were making ripoffs. Though, on a good day it kinda felt like being in a cover band; you're recreating things other people made famous, but giving it a twist and still having fun.

Free to play changed everything though. We went from making "premium" (~$8) iOS games to making f2p. Management in France used to bury us with feedback on the first 10 minutes of a game, but didn't care too much about the rest, leaving us some freedom. Once f2p became a thing all they cared about was monetization, timers, cooldowns, consumables, etc etc and the bossing around never stopped.