Please make your own original characters, you are creative, you can do it, you don't need the fake popularity another franchise generates. Seriously.

If you want to become a game maker, makes games and make them your own. Sure you can be inspired, you can ask What if there was a game like Pokemon, but it's an RTS? Why not? But don't just take universes and make fanfics.

Because we need new blood and the big AAA projects can't do something radically different. They can't challenge or create new genres - they don't have the opportunity to fail trying at something different - but indie makers do.

So every Pokemon clone is a missed opportunity for what could have been the next Seaman, or the next Portal, or the next Braid, or the next Hotline Miami. You never know until you start making a ton of games, have some of them fail, and then get lucky with a great one... but if you're all you're making is Pokemon clones, you never get the opportunity to really get noticed beyond a cease-and-desist.