You ever notice that some games are built a certain way? You ever notice how there are games that are intended to gain the most widespread appeal ever and are built trite, cliche, and generic in order to do that? What about games that have a clear vision that makes them different or unique in some way?
When it comes to game design, there are ultimately some decisions that you have to make but before any of those decisions come up you have to answer a question: why are you making this game? Are you making it because it's the game you want to make more than anything else? Or are you making it to gain profit and get rich? The difference between these two mentalities will determine how your game inevitably turns out.
As far as I'm concerned, the answers to that question have two overarching assumptions: the assumption that you have to succeed and the assumption that you are going to fail. If you assume you have to succeed, the way your game turns out will be influenced by that: it will be easy to market, have widespread appeal, and possibly make more sales than the average game but will be something that you've probably experienced a million times before with no unique aspects, a structure that is intended to chase trends rather than set them, and make your game so homogeneous that it will barely be distinguished from anything else. If you assume you're going to fail, however, your game will be unique, fresh, and built with experimentation and innovation in mind but will likely prove difficult to market or even to sell.
These mindsets are at the core of so many games: games like The Order 1886, the new God of War, and games like them are built with profit in mind and not really any spark of creativity. Likewise, Demon's Souls experimented in a lot of ways, Bayonetta introduced Dodge Offeset and a uniquely dominatrix protagonist, and God Hand introduced customizable movesets and Dynamic Difficulty but, while all of these games are great for reasons unique to each of them, none of them do as well financially or commercially as games that are much more phoned in.
This decision will also dictate to a certain extent where in the industry you decide to work. AAA often make more money than Indie titles but, because they're so money driven, very few of them outside of a select few titles manage to do anything unique with the budgets they're given. Other than developers like That Game Studio and certain developers at Platinum, particularly Hideki Kamiya, very few consistently choose to put new and unique features in their games because those features are not likely or proven to be popular.
Likewise, Indie Devs can be just as money-driven as AAA Devs but the ones that are more about experimenting will make games like Papers Please, Dust Force, Space Chem, games that are unique and great on their own but are generally not big money makers.
There are games that can do both. A game that experiments out the wazoo and makes a crap ton of money because it's a trend starter. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was unique when it came out because it took First Person Shooters into the modern day away from World War II, Minecraft made Early Access a concept that would be appealing for devs for years to come, Five Nights at Freddy's was only good enough to sustain an hour of entertainment but that was all it needed for how unique of a horror game it was and changed the landscape of indie horror in ways that we're still seeing even now with Hello Neighbor and Bendy & the Ink Machine.
However, just because a game turns out to be both doesn't mean you should expect it to be. Games that defy the status quo can often be more successful than games that don't but usually these games will fail harder than an average game normally would. So you have to make the priority early in your career. Do you want to make games or do you want to make money? Do you want to make money first then make a game that you want after? Or do you want to make your first game and decide what to do after it's released? These are questions you'll have to answer and you'll have to be satisfied with what you choose so that you can push yourself through a development cycle that, more likely than not, will be very trying for you.
Have a wonderful day.
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