Perhaps because the game is too pricy for the content and type of game it is? If they were okay with losing profit for the purpose of spreading brand awareness, why didn't they price this at 5 dollars? I'm sure it would have sold a lot more at that price.

Mario is not the kind of game that would make individuals spend thousands of dollars to beat the other guys. It's more of single player game so it was bound to sell less.

Long term value >>>> Short term money grabbing

As long as they publish some mini-games they could go for the free-to-play model. But they shouldn't release a Mario platform game for less than 10$, even on mobile.

As far as I could tell, their goal for mobile games was brand exposure.

The games is quote lame tbh, well you need full controls for a good 2D Mario.