If you saw our Facebook you probably saw we linked that Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 came out, a game that’s been highly anticipated since the previous entry back in November.
One thing I’ve noticed from a particular place on the internet is there are a lot of people who straight up hate the game. They seem angry that it’s popular, which happens to many games that suddenly soar in popularity. Whether they hate the YouTubers who are doing Let’s Plays of it (granted I’m not a fan of PewDiePie, but I’m not taking it out on the game), or are sick of hearing about it from their friends at school, or some other reason, they seem to want Five Night’s at Freddy’s to go away forever.
The most common thing I see is people saying the game’s creator, Scott Cawthon, is only doing it to milk the franchise and get as much money as possible. While in a way that’s not completely false (like most people in the world he doesn’t work for free), I have to completely disagree with it.
Scott obviously has a passion for games, he’s been making them for a long time now as an indie developer. With the insane amount of details and little secrets he’s put into the series to fit with the lore he’s built around it, I don’t see how FNAF can be written off as just a cash grab. Yes he’s selling it for money, but he made the games because he ENJOYS making games. After his Chipper and Sons game failed, putting him in a depression that almost made him quit making games for good, he struck gold with Five Nights at Freddy’s, the game’s positive reception reigniting his passion for making games. He followed the supply and demand and made more when people said they wanted more, rather than the sinister Activision-esque plans people seem to be accusing him of.
With that note, I once again read someone using the line “Why is this ok but when a Call of Duty game comes out every year people hate it?” Well, I’d say the simple difference is the contexts are completely different. One is made by a company with an obscenely high budget, a large team of developers, and expected to release AAA quality games that are sold at $60 (regardless of quality). The other is an indie developer working completely on his own releasing much smaller games on a much smaller budget, selling said games at around $8. The common factor is both games are about the same length. (hue)
Anyway, the namesake of the article. People seem too hung up on the NAMES of the games. I’ve seen all over the place things about how the games should be called Five Nights at Freddy’s: Episode 1/2/3 rather than full numbered releases. I think these people are ignoring the context I mentioned in the last paragraph and are putting too much weight on the names of these things instead of the actual content. Each game has similarities, being part of the same series and all, but I think it’s fair to say each game is different enough that slapping an “Episode” subtitle on there doesn’t quite fit.
This isn’t like the Telltale games where they’re episodic like a TV show, it’s more like indie short films that tell an overarching story but in completely different time periods, telling it piece by piece yes, but in very different ways and as separate experiences. Overlooking how different each game plays is unfairly comparing the three just because they were released so closely to one another. In a way you could use similar logic to say that Final Fantasy 13’s games should have been called Episodes 1-3 rather than the titles they have.
So what’s the point? There really isn’t one. If Scott really WAS doing it as a cash grab then I’m wrong, and the world will keep spinning. It just seems unfair to write off his efforts and passion for a game series just because you don’t like a YouTuber. It’s a unique idea that caught on and became popular, and it’s better than the same copy/paste shit people have defended in other franchise.
…doesn’t mean I’m going to play it on the show though.
– Jimizzle