As a distributor for companies that sell both licensed and unlicensed games, I can offer you this.

Licensed games are quicker to sell initially, but licensed does not equal great game (as most of us know).

That being said, unlicensed games are no cheaper to build, I would argue that they are probably more expensive in the long run. You have to come up with everything for an unlicensed game (art, sounds, clips, story, goals, etc, etc). Here are a couple of examples

The Hobbit - I have sold these to people that are not "pinball people," but just like The Hobbit. That is not done with a game like Dialed In. Also, with a game like The Hobbit, you are given assets and a clear(ish) objective for the game.

Dialed In - While sales were slow to begin with, the more that people play the game, the better it seems to sell. The issues with dialed in is that all of the assets have to be made (sounds, video clips, objectives, etc). So if you have to pay someone to create all of this or pay a licensor it comes down to the same amount (or close).