The latest entry in the ever popular Five Nights at Freddy’s series, Five Nights at Freddy’s World, has been pulled down from the Steam store. Creator and developer Scott Cawthorn made a post in the Steam community page for Five Nights at Freddy’s Four regarding the situation:
“Hi everyone, I wanted to make a post about the fate of FNaF World. Even though the game had a “Very Positive” rating with 87%, I was not satisfied with the reviews and ratings it was getting.”
This doesn’t mean that the game is completely scrapped, and Scott plans to continue his work on it. According to his statement, he’s occupied with the creation of a fully 3D overworld for FNAF. When the update is ready, the demo on GameJolt will be replaced with the full, new version. Scott went on to say that the game will be free from this point on.
Fans of the game and the series have taken to the comments on the Steam post and social media.
Somewhat surprisingly, the response has been incredibly supportive of Scott and his bold move. This is mostly due to his consistent transparency and communication with his fans and the FNAF community.
Scott’s announcement was an example of how to properly address fan concerns, while remaining professional and transparent about his intentions for the game. And that’s more than what some developers are willing to do.
It’s certainly a stark contrast to a game like sci-fi FPS Destiny, which has fans outraged about a spectrum of game issues that range from imbalances to new microtransactions. Unlike Scott and his lengthy post to his fans, the Community Manager for Destiny offered all of one tweet to address fan concerns:
Transparency was a huge issue in 2015, especially in the cases of AAA games like Batman: Arkham Knight or Mortal Kombat X. When fans were kept in the dark, the torches were lit and pitch forks raised. It seems like fans and developers are clashing a lot these days, and it’s probably pretty intimidating for any developer to be totally open with a fanbase that expects so much. But Scott was brave enough to do so, and the response from his community has been overwhelmingly supportive.
