If you are talking about Lost Relics on Enjin then I too have known this from around 2018. Did play the game a few times but it was too simplistic to be enjoyable. The developers still have the NFT functionality built in where any in-game items you win will appear in your blockchain wallet. Its just that the games themselves aren't refined enough to have this economy make much of a difference.
I still hope Lost Relics can have a sustainable economy at some point. For now it's not possible yet because the game is in Alpha phase, and many items we have acquired grinding don't have a function in game. But an usage is being given to them as we have new updates being introduced. I've played for long hours already and have also bought a legendary bow weapon through Enjin platform. For me it has been entertaining.
While I'd prefer that these working projects reach scale and find lot of players, the reality is that till a real game studio comes on the scene, single developers and small teams simply cannot deliver the same level of art and game mechanics. When the big studios decide to pivot to blockchain, these games will simply stop getting supported as the developers will be hired by the established studios.
I think the called Indie games will still have attention and support from players' community, although in minor scale if compared to the products of big studios, just like we see in the traditional gaming industry. Maybe developers can be hired by an established company or even have their games purchased by someone else and that is a risk to be taken. However the risk also exist when you make purchases at any other virtual games. It's not an exclusivity of blockchain games' category.
This is what has been happening forever and that is the reason that people just want to make a quick profit as soon as possible. The "Flippers" are at the bottom of the food chain. The real predators are the people like those behind "Evolved Apes". The ones who realize that it is easy to create hype in this space and decide to simply scam people out of their money.
Speculation inflates prices a lot during hypes in crypto market as a whole. People just need to be careful where they invest money and if determined investment worths that amount to be invested.
As I understood, in Evolved Apes' case there were only promises of a potential game, what was already a red flag indicating people could be dealing with a predator, as you said. After all the guy behind the project didn't create anything. He just collected money from investors, ordered some art creations from third party artists (who weren't paid) and ran away with the money.
As you mentioned games created by bigger studios, the most recent mmorpg one is called MIR4, created by a south korean company called WEMADE. The game has introduced its own token called DRACO and has promised NFTs for November. It works in partnership with WEMIX wallet. It's a free to play game.