On that point you are right, many players still don’t look beyond where they should or want to (because everyone has their own tastes and preferences), but my reflection goes as follows: And I’ll use myself as an example—if my game uses a single AI-generated image, and it’s only for the presentation of the game, while the gameplay mechanics, the idea of the game, and everything else as a whole is developed by a human, what relevance for or against does that image really have? Isn’t it logical to ask: why discard something you haven’t even seen or played, simply because it has an AI-generated image? (or because you think it was generated by AI, since no one can be 100% sure unless I confirm it). That’s where my doubt lies, and my reflection on the matter.
As for the installation barrier, I don’t believe it (unless you’re talking about itch.io users), because as I already said, otherwise Google Play wouldn’t exist, and games wouldn’t have millions of downloads (mine are also on Google Play). That’s why I don’t understand your statement: “Add to that the barrier of installing a casual game that should have been a browser game.” My game is for Android—I would never make it for browser, because that’s not my goal. Once again, I believe itch.io doesn’t have an audience for Android games.