The ACTUAL Problem with MFGG

[The Dark Warrior]

People make fangames to pay tribute to (or gently parody) the source material. Many of the best fangames (such as Mushroom Pancakes or Normal Super Mario Bros.) are very creative in that they have unique gameplay mechanics and do things that Nintendo probably wouldn't do with the franchise. However, I won't argue that they're not derivative - they're fangames, and fangames are, by their very nature, derivative. If you're working on a game that uses extremely innovative gameplay elements, you're probably going to make an indie game so you don't feel limited by the boundaries of the source material, and so you can monetize your work.

Many professional game developers have gotten their start by making and sharing games on MFGG. Even if you feel like you've "graduated" from making fangames, you're more than welcome to use the MFGG forums to share whatever creative projects you're making. (Although if you don't feel any affinity for the MFGG community, you might be better off leaving and finding someplace that's better aligned with your current interests and attitudes.)

Basically, fangames work best when they're fun, simple, and creative - when they pay tribute to the source material while expanding its boundaries.

I agree in which fangames inherently are derivative, because you don't own the IP nor that Nintendo granted you permission to make a Mario game or any game they own the rights to.

However, just because you are working on a fangame, doesn't mean one has to be faithful to the established lore and canon of the official series. I could go in and just for example make a fangame where Mario is to be some evil plumber being the protagonist and your job is to traverse 1 single edgy world filled with zombified toads as mooks serving Bowser being the ultimate evil plunging the world into oblivion, in which the lesser evil being Mario must kill him then kidnap Peach just to establish a totalitarian regime that at least defends the world from Bowser, by using guns and shrooms laid about to fight your way into victiory...and people should be encouraged to go out of their comfort zone to be creative with what they want to make, preferably if they know how to, which isnt defined by how faithful they can be to the established canon. The game idea hypothetical I just said is not really a tribute to Nintendo's IP, at least, not in a traditional sense that people think of tributes...its a fan Alternate Universe take of what they want Mario to be and have the ideas to realize it, even though that idea is unpopular purely because all of that is out of character... thats the point. Confinement in this sense is entirely arbitrary for that precise reason meant to restrict people into thinking that they cant really take a character and apply whatever they want to make, consciously. You dont have to make an indie to do just that, because already what was done regarding the ideas, conceptually breaks boundaries and can very well actually break the boundaries if someone can fully realize the hypothetical I just said in this paragraph.

The real issue as why doing out of canon takes of an established IP gets a bad rep is that people are terrible writers who don't even know what they are doing when they want to make their own fangame. Fangames work best by sheer creativity of level design that immerses you into the game world with the stage gimmicks you either use or overcome, and how fun it is to play the game by the gameplay mechanics, not necessarily having to be following the source material all the time.