I wrote a while back about how Pokemon games on Byond are the same thing over and over again. That hasn't really changed much... In fact, alot of anime-based games are the same stuff over and over again.

The reasons tend to boil down to the following:
A) Hey, a person made that! I wanna see if I can do better.
B) They won't let me have some special rank. I'll just make my own game since I can't host my own server!
C) Wait, someone already did what I've been working on? ... Ah, whatever. I'll host my creation anyway.

I'm not taking a potshot at any specific games. It's just that every now and again I log into a new game only to find it is something I've already played, just under a different name. What makes things worse is when the restrictions are stretched to an insane level. I have seen some games have you level too fast (10 levels per second) or too slow (takes an hour gain a single level). Some games have too much variety in prestablished "groups" you can join. I mean when there's fifteen groups but only like 5 people on at any given moment, you should cut the groups down in number or just out. Sometimes in Pokemon games, for example, the requirements for being a Gym Leader (I must interject that relying on players to be gym leaders is a whole other problem) are rarely something like "Level 30 Party" and far more frequently "Level 500 Party". That just wastes your players' time and discourages players from so much as logging in the game. Related: level caps can be annoying, but it helps keep the PVP from getting too one-sided.

When it comes to content, it tends to be just "find and kill ____" or "search for the mystical upgrade item and you'll be boosted in fighting power to kill more". If there's a "fun minigame", it's usually just purely luck based skills like fishing or mining that are added as an afterthought. There are some of these games that have stuff like arenas, but those are not common (although far more common in Dragon Ball based games). When was the last time you ever saw something like a derby in a Byond game? I mean, in a game that relies on stats, you could have the horse/Chocobo/Rapidash/whatever gain boosts based on what its/your Agility or Speed stat is. In a game that is purely your skill, you could just outright RACE by mashing the arrow keys. In fact, the later requires far less coding than the former! All you'd need would be something/one to keep track of what players enter the derby and in what order they finish.

In short I know that Byond games can be fun, but if it takes offering people "GM" status (especially in games that have NO NEED for any sort of special player ranks) to keep them playing, maybe you need to take a second look at the actual content lest your game become just an icon-chat.