“I’ve seen 5+ clones of Papers Please. I doubt that if you surveyed people describing the mechanics that they would be interested especially if Papers Please never came out.”

I think this is a great example. You can’t distill things down to a formula because these things exist in conversation with each other. An example that comes to mind is the game “Not Tonight”, a Brexit themed Papers Please clone. Mechanically, it does very little to distinguish itself from papers please, but narratively, that’s sort of the whole point: It being a clone specifically leverages the energy of “Glory to Arstotzka” to satirise the UK’s institutional racism.

Surveys don’t capture that games like this aren’t just clones of Papers Please, they’re actively in conversation with Papers Please