This is a message to all those who make or support "fangames".

I think many game developers, including mainstream industry professionals, who make games based on something else tend to entirely miss the point of making games to begin with. This includes those who make games based on anything from anime to movies to even toys. When you compare these kinds of games with ones that are completely original within the same genres, you will probably notice that in most cases the original ones have much better gameplay and are more fun in general.

I would say that this is because most of the developers of games based around other things make the mistake of focusing more on the "universe" or "atmosphere" of their games than the actual gameplay itself.

An important factor that contributes to the inferior gameplay and design of these games in the mainstream is the "insurance policy" provided by the existing fanbase. Developers know that they can get away with relatively worse gameplay, and still get fans of the IPs to buy their games. This is the sad reality of the situation, and the resulting games often end up being termed "shovelware".

Basically, you shouldn't even be asking whether you should make an original game or "fan" game, if you don't already have the gameplay down to begin with. The whole point of making a game is for players to experience the gameplay, and neither original nor anime based represents any kind of description of the actual gameplay. This is something that most people on BYOND just don't understand, and I think this would be a much nicer place if they did.

What I'm trying to say is that you need to come up with and develop the game's core systems before you even think about what kind of world, characters or storyline it might have. You need to recognize that the gameplay itself is always going to be separate from any of the specific objects that make the world unique. If your code isn't modular enough that you could reuse the engine to make a completely different game in the same genre, then you are doing something wrong.

These are the kinds of questions you need to be asking:

What genre/s will my game fall under?
What will players be doing in my game?
How will players interact with the world and each other?
How will the world react when players interact with it?
How will NPCs behave and respond?
What objects or tools can players use, and what functions will they have?

All of these questions can be answered without actually knowing anything about your game's particular world, characters, or events. Predicting what features would be useful for a particular kind of world, and implementing those is fine, as long as they are made to be generic and modular enough to be used in any number of games. Just make sure you are not wasting time dwelling on what your game is going to "be about", instead of developing the gameplay itself. You can think about all of that after you have a fully working engine. Following these rules should make anyone a better game developer.

When people here say that they prefer original games, it's not only because they are just tired of anime games, but because they know original games almost always end up with better gameplay and design than a game based around something else would. I should point out that there is a difference between making a game based off of something and making a game in the style of something. For example, if your game already has solid gameplay and design, and you want it to have an anime art style or generic anime elements like certain combat styles, that should be perfectly fine, as long as it isn't something specific to a certain IP.

Honestly, I think it would be best to just make something completely original, because your own imagination has more potential than anything others have come up with.