That's what people said about Asia-style free-to-play games, too: that they would never work in the West due to cultural differences. Turns out that was totally wrong.
No, you're actually making the mistake of conflating China with the rest of Asia. Japan, which also has a high-context culture, has paid upfront for games for decades. And it wasn't just that free-to-play games were popular in China first, it's that paid games could never turn a profit because people would pirate them. There's a huge difference between people not using a product and people using it without paying for it.
The primary reason why free-to-play games became popular in the West is because the $0.99 floor that Apple set for the App Store drove consumer psychology regarding app purchases, which made it difficult to turn a profit in any other way. Just take a look at Steam to see how much money is being made from non-freemium games.
