Why are fans capable of these things for free in their spare time that the actual companies cannot provide to us in a paid commercial product?
It's infuriating. Why pay for this product when the fans make it better for free. Same with decomps and recomps. Why even give money to these companies at all?
As Lop1 said, the answer boils down to priorities and intention.
When it comes to fan works, there can, legally, be
no profit whatsoever coming from them. Even those asking for donations walk a very fine line between fair use and infringement, as the dev/project lead would have to prove that all of the money is going into the project, instead of into their pockets, if accused of profiting from another company's IP. Because of this, and other legal hurdles that could cut a fan project's development time short, there's no real incentive for fans to see these projects through to completion,
let alone start such projects in the first place. So this means only two kinds of people will work on these projects from start to finish: either a) dedicated fans who are willing to devote the time and effort into what's essentially profitless volunteer work that could last for months or even years, or b) AI vibecoders who are just looking for attention and don't care about the quality of the work they "develop".
Companies, on the other hand, do not invest in profitless endeavors. They invest in commercial products intended to make a profit - the degree of the profit desired varying. Because of this, they don't operate under the same volunteer work environment that fan projects do. They need to hire developers and artists who'll see the work through without hiatus as long as they're compensated. They need a development time frame that isn't "it'll be done when it's done" so they can estimate how much the labor will be costing them. They have to factor in advertising, licensing, trademarks, copyright -
so many things that fans don't have to factor into their own work, yet always have to be cautious of with fan projects. And
THEN they have to compare all this against projected MSRP and sales numbers, to determine if it's even worth greenlighting the project. (Basically, if there's too much of a risk of the project being a noticeable/substantial loss for the company, rather than just being a tiny blip on the quarterly/yearly financial report if it doesn't work out, it won't be approved.)
In short, fans working on fan projects have to worry about their own energy, funding, and motivation in the face of profitless (and potentially thankless) work that's forced to tiptoe around IP laws. Companies just have to worry about whether they'll see profits or losses from a project, and if those losses will be significant enough to pose a huge risk.
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