Why don't certain fan games/mods work? Thread

What do Starfox, Stargate and Jurassic Park have in common? The answer to that rhetorical question is they all have a ton of fan games and mods, very few of which ever see the light of day.

The knee jerk reaction is to say that either it's over ambitious teenagers or lawyers came and shut them down. I remember being on a forum where one of the Shadows of Lylat devs frequented, and he insisted for a long time, I'd guess a year or so, that the mod wasn't dead and was definitely coming out, only for it's death to unceremoniously be announced.
Moddb.com
Paths of Fate was another Starfox mod, this time for Max Payne 2, that I was surprised got cancelled. Yeah, it looked ugly due to a mish mash of graphics ripped from different games, and a mess of a story full of fan characters and author inserts, but it looked like there was a game there.

There are exceptions of course. StarCry was one of the rare few to make it to the finish line. I've not played it myself, but it looks like a fun game.

My question is, why do so few of them make it? If anything, shouldn't they have more of a chance than most mods due to other like minded fans chipping in to help out?

SabreXT wrote: [...] it looked ugly due to a mish mash of graphics ripped from different games
[...] a mess of a story full of fan characters and author inserts.

My question is, why do so few of them make it?

You've answered your own question. Why should the project be taken in high regard if it lacks quality?

They shouldn't, bad games don't have to be fan games, and fan games don't have to be terrible. I only brought up that example because it looked like an almost complete game and still didn't make it to the finish line.

SabreXT wrote: They shouldn't, bad games don't have to be fan games, and fan games don't have to be terrible. I only brought up that example because it looked like an almost complete game and still didn't make it to the finish line.

Because finishing a game is the hardest part, be it a fan game or not. I don't think there are more fan games than there are non-fan game failing, might just be your perspective.