Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. It’s hard to tell, since so few developers ever actually release their fan projects in the first place, so there’s not a lot of noteworthy cases to draw precedent from.

But at the very least, you’ll end up with a finished product under your belt. You’ll have experienced the entire process of designing, developing, and releasing a video game. That’s legitimate experience that you can put on your resume, even if you are sued for it. But an incomplete project that got shutdown before ever seeing the light of day is worthless to a developer who may want to pursue a future in software.