Five Nights At Freddy's World: The Ugly Side of Escapism

[ChaoGuy2006]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLnSkl7A5o0

From Cheshire Cat Studios podcast, a look at the next FNAF game that isn't horror, the fanbase, how the fans almost infantalized the franchise, hyper-fans over stuff that really shouldn't warrant it, infantalization a of society, and the balance of escapism to prevent isolationism.
Not that hyper-fans are causing "the breakdown of society", but that hyper-fans are a symptom of society's current problems with withdrawal into "safe-spaces" (Not just the ones used to block dissenting opinion by whiny college kids, but self-made ones to hide from undesirable elements of life).

As Undertale is going to be the next big thing, will that get the same treatment?
With Undertale, they have more defined characteristics than the blank slates of FNAF, so there's less chance of the audience creating a personality to fill the void.
But will the fans cause the reputation of the game to nose-dive, and future games by Toby being affected by what they want?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

All I know is I'm staying far, far away from FNAF. Frankly I'm a little intimidated by the unhinged fascination fans seem to have for the lore. I understand the appeal of the games, what I don't get is the mystique that seems to surround them.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Its mostly just 20mins of them complaining that fans draw characters.

 

[EyeReaper]

I'd say Undertale fans are pretty rabid as is. Especially when LEt's players don't play the game exactly as they do. I've been watching ContinueQuest (lovely people, would recommend, in fact, I just did) go through it as blind as possible, and first commentors were mad that they didn't do a full pacifist run, then, when the LPers found out about sparing enemies, I remeber the comments going along the lines of "Oh great another youtuber going for a no kill ending. So original"

In their most recent episode, they accidentally talked over the moment where Sans gets all serious, and oh man the comments there are more salty than a bucket of french fries in the Dead Sea. It's almost more entertaining than the video itself to see so many people shit themselves over one line of dialogue. almost.

 

[EternallyBored]

I'd say Undertale fans are pretty rabid as is. Especially when LEt's players don't play the game exactly as they do. I've been watching ContinueQuest (lovely people, would recommend, in fact, I just did) go through it as blind as possible, and first commentors were mad that they didn't do a full pacifist run, then, when the LPers found out about sparing enemies, I remeber the comments going along the lines of "Oh great another youtuber going for a no kill ending. So original"

In their most recent episode, they accidentally talked over the moment where Sans gets all serious, and oh man the comments there are more salty than a bucket of french fries in the Dead Sea. It's almost more entertaining than the video itself to see so many people shit themselves over one line of dialogue. almost.

I'd say that's a consequence of Let's Players in general, especially anyone that does a story heavy game. The amount of salt on Youtube anytime anyone misses a story point or talks over a moment the commenter thinks is emotional is hilarious. I remember Game Grumps did a video on this little indie game that was supposed to be about isolation and there was all this stuff that was meant to be deep, but because they were a comedy channel they talked alot and joked around with the game mechanics, and interpreted the story way differently than some of the other Let's Players. The comment section for that video was an avalanche of butthurt.

Hell, even without story, god forbid you aren't very good at a game, or make a mistake or miss a tooltip due to trying to deliver snappy commentary, the viewers will inform you of every mistake you make in excruciating detail.

OT: I'll agree with Silentpony here, the video seems to basically be a whinefest about FNAF doing something they don't like. The stretch to commenting about society, safe-spaces, and infatilization was unconvincing at best. Taking FNAF's horror cute aesthetic and playing it straight is not indicative of anything beyond, like UndeadSuitor said, the developer having no idea what to do with a series that's had 4 entries in a year.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

*shakes salt on top of the video* These two people are saaaaaaaaaaaaaalty it seems. Just sounded like a bunch of whining about the fanbase than Scott's actual direction. Whoever was on the left (I don't care to look up who he is) was on point saying Scott probably wanted to take things in a new direction. That should have been built upon. Instead I spent the next several minutes listening to some drivel about the fanbase and what they say about the FNAF characters. Sound argument, absolutely

 

[HybridChangeling]

This is every fanbase's worst side, from Bronies demanding that "this ship must be canon" to anime crack ships and headcanons, people in the fanbase get really passionate and start adding their own views to the world. Sometimes this can actually be good and make transformative art, but most of the time its people being angry that this and that didn't hook up with background-character-with-slightly-unique-appearance-#244 that they talked to once. It is just frustrating at times, but should be ignored.

Scott is a nice guy for the most part trying to make a living with something. I didn't hear anyone talk like this when Bethesda made Skyrim , nobody complained they were milking the series and pulling it away from it's 2.5D roots. He is trying to do something new with the series and evolved it from hide and seek story scavenger hunt. Give him some credit for that at least.

(Sorry if there is a mistake, Escapist's ad surge is slowing typing to a crawl.)

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Outside of Minecraft, my nephew loves this game.. so ya know what? Milk it.

It seems like, okay FNAF built an audience, wrong or not, and the game maker wants to sell out to this audience.

Look, the guy was working at Target during the making of the first one so, by all means... and this goes for everyone, cause were all hustling for that paper, if you ever get the chance to sell out? Fucking take it. You're principals, your artistic self worth isn't going to pay the bills yo. Your fans, equally, aren't going to pay your bills.

 

[Fox12]

Outside of Minecraft, my nephew loves this game.. so ya know what? Milk it.

It seems like, okay FNAF built an audience, wrong or not, and the game maker wants to sell out to this audience.

Look, the guy was working at Target during the making of the first one so, by all means... and this goes for everyone, cause were all hustling for that paper, if you ever get the chance to sell out? Fucking take it. You're principals, your artistic self worth isn't going to pay the bills yo. Your fans, equally, aren't going to pay your bills.

I mean, it's not like it was some bastion of artistic integrity to begin with. Heaven forbid Scott violates the rich lore of FNAF : P

If I were him I'd ride that gravy train all the way the bank. His kids have to go to college somehow.

 

[Ryallen]

All fanbases are cancer. I have said this before and I will continue to do so. There is nothing wrong with being a fan of something, but the vast majority of what comes out of fanbases are terrible and insufferable. Fanfiction, fan art, gifs, Tumblr, all of it. It's all terrible. And the fact that the fanbase is turning against the creator is hilarious to me. Sucks for Scott, but I just find it funny that the weight of the fanbases' tumorous existence is collapsing in on itself.

 

[Fappy]

The Five Nights at Freddy's fanbase always creeped me the fuck out. I like the games, but not like those guys.

You could say the same about any "niche" fanbase, I guess.

 

[ChaoGuy2006]

it seems to me those two guys are more pissed that the developer and creator (who is clearly in over his head as the original game was lightning in a jar) is milking the franchise in a different direction than what they want

I think it was more that the dev had the potential to do a new game, and he's playing it safe resulting in more stagnation from his audience (more FNAF). The guys in the vid (in their snippits from podcasts at least) have pretty short fuses for anything that limits or hinders the medium (DLC price gouging, publisher shenanigans, reviews that are just plain wrong, and developers not going to their full potential out of laziness, choice, or peer pressure from their audience).

I suppose it wouldn't been as bad if there were less sequels, and each one had a much more dramatic improvement.

 

[ChaoGuy2006]

All fanbases are cancer. I have said this before and I will continue to do so. There is nothing wrong with being a fan of something, but the vast majority of what comes out of fanbases are terrible and insufferable. Fanfiction, fan art, gifs, Tumblr, all of it. It's all terrible. And the fact that the fanbase is turning against the creator is hilarious to me. Sucks for Scott, but I just find it funny that the weight of the fanbases' tumorous existence is collapsing in on itself.

Tribalism/fanboyism does suck- if the lowest common denominator is allowed in.

With titles that are more difficult to get into (harder to make fan characters that look like they fit in the universe, a more difficult game, or a genuinely deeper lore), it seems that they have a higher barrier to entry, and as such the community is better. Think about times a multiplayer game has been made easier, and how quickly after the community changed.

That's not to say games with a high entry-point always have good communities. If it becomes too high, the community becomes elitist or having a superiority complex, making it just as bad as the lowest fans of games with no difficulty to enter.

The best way to prevent this sort of thing is to not pander to younger or less experienced players. If you don't want to risk a cancerous fan base- make your game something only the older players will have the skill to play and enjoy.
You'll still get the odd obsessive, but the rest of the community will ignore them while they have deeper discussions that helps you learn how to make your next game better.

 

[Saetha]

The best way to prevent this sort of thing is to not pander to younger or less experienced players. If you don't want to risk a cancerous fan base- make your game something only the older players will have the skill to play and enjoy.
You'll still get the odd obsessive, but the rest of the community will ignore them while they have deeper discussions that helps you learn how to make your next game better.

I dunno, that kinda sounds like excluding younger gamers because they have a higher likelihood to be jerks. But younger gamers still deserve to have something to play, and you might even want to write a game or make a gameplay system that aims for that feel. To touch upon your Undertale example - part of the reason the game's story works is because it's so innocent. If it were darker or more mature just to ward off the younger crowd, I don't think it would've had as much impact. So should a creator sacrifice the quality of their game and story just to keep out the kiddies?

And besides, I don't think the issue is so much that awful people are playing these games and then becoming fans of them. Let's Players seem to play a large part - and there, the only way to keep out less experienced players is to make the game so hard that not even the let's players can finish it, and then you'd just get the elitist problem.

And on the subject of the video - I kind of echo the feeling that they seem weirdly mad at the fans for drawing fanart and reading too far into the games themselves. Now I DO think the FNAF fandom tends to be annoying in other ways, such as claiming each and every barely-different iteration of the series is the "scariest game ever!" But the cutesy fan art and defanged interpretations of characters isn't too much a problem for me, mostly because... well I just don't really associate with FNAF.

Also, two other things about the video that kinda peeve me - the slamming on isolated people, which always annoys me (Yes, because that's how you get isolated people to reach out and develop relationships - belitting them and implying that they're loser freaks.) and the slamming on furries - which, okay, yeah, I find them a little weird too, but their bedroom preferences have no bearing on me or my life, so...

 

[Loonyyy]

Honestly, for all the talks of the ugly side of escapism, projection, and whinging about fanbases, that video is just ugly. It's really, really ugly.

They can talk all they want about fanbases and random fanart, they're still just getting annoyed that someone drew something differently. They're still just getting annoyed that a game that they dismiss as "Oogoda boogoda" isn't fleshing out its backstory, the horror. That the new art for the new game is cute, and somehow missing the obvious point, it's just fanservice. There's a ton of motivated reasoning there that says a lot more about those who made the video than anyone else.

These guys are salty as hell, and the disdain they try to put on with their little animation is exactly how everyone else should be looking at their video. And I haven't played FNAF, and having seen the godawful let's plays, I never will.

 

[briankoontz]

I don't agree with most of what people have said in this thread, except Loonyyy. Let's take this point by point:

We don't live in a meaningful world, and not because of the secular Rick and Morty "Nothing means anything" sense. The world has no future - we as a species are not working toward anything positive. All we're doing is living until we die, and no "helping others" or "socializing" or whatever other escape from reality we attempt changes that. It's understandable in such a terrible situation that we seek meaning through art. Criticizing a fandom is pointless and sad, since the honored art is part of what makes life bearable for the fandom. Precisely because we don't live in a world with an *understood* meaning, we create our own meaning, including the understanding of the *possibility* that what we honor could in fact save the world, or at least play a role in that.

I get the annoyance of people at the content of Let's Plays. We hoped for something wondrous - I remember when people first talked about Let's Plays as if they were going to change the world, while instead we got another example of 90% of everything being crap. But let's plays built the game streaming empire that most of us ostensibly support - that will be it's lasting legacy.

In terms of personal isolation, I refer you to my first point. We as a human society are not engaged in any project that we understand to be positive. We're pretty fucking depressed about the dying world in which we live, as can hardly be avoided while we retain our sanity. What we've decided to do is to delve into dungeons. The popularity of Dungeons and Dragons is based not only on the Society for Creative Anachronism's understanding of the moral death of the industrialized world, but on the failure of various social projects both in the 1960's and subsequently, including spectacle and media-driven modern "movements". Video games ARE the Multiverse. They are the endless dungeons we delve into seeking treasure and amazements that enrich our lives and may in fact play a role in saving the world.

Our isolation is a *personal choice* based on the repeated failure of not being isolated. This being "isolated", since it bears no resemblance to true isolation such as the torture technique of absolute isolation.

Scott Cawthon is not selling out by continuing to produce FNAF content. Most artists don't have a million ideas running through their heads which have to be put on hold if a project is continued. That's a false stereotype of "creative people". There's nothing wrong with giving an audience what it wants.