Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon has announced his retirement from game development, in the wake of criticisms leveled against him for political donations to Republic PACs, including those that supported Donald Trump. The FNaF developer revealed he would be stepping down from the series, just days after a Reddit post in which he said that it was maybe “better than I get canceled and retire” as a result of the controversy surrounding him.
Why is FNaF’s Scott Cawthon retiring?
Last week, it was revealed that Cawthon had “maxed out” his political donations to Republican candidates and PACs in 2020, including Trump and Mitch McConnell. Given the anti-LGBT+ policies enacted by these Republicans and the number of LGBT+ players within the FNaF fandom, Cawthon’s political motivations were brought into question.
https://twitter.com/IAmGryphoneer/status/1403037291187257344
Cawthon responded to the criticisms of him in a lengthy Reddit post, in which he said that he would “not apologize for” voting for and supporting “the candidates who I felt could best run the country, for everyone.”
“To say that the last few days have been surreal would be an understatement,” Scott wrote. “I’ve debated greatly how best to address this, including not addressing it at all, but with so many people from the LGBT community in the fanbase that I love, that’s not an option. I’d like to think that the last seven years would have given me the benefit of the doubt in regards to how I try to treat people, but there I was, trending on twitter for being a homophobe, getting doxed, with people threatening to come to my house.”
He added that the people he had supported “included men, women, white people, black people, republicans, and democrats,” and also noted his support for Kimberly Klacik in Baltimore as she “really cared for the African American community there,” and that he also supported “Tulsi Gabbard, a democrat, even though I disagreed with her on several issues, because I felt she would have been a good and fair president.”
However, Cawthon’s response still didn’t sit right with many. YouTube creator James Stephanie Sterling posted a video in which they outlined why Cawthon’s political donations were particularly damaging to the LGBT+ community, despite Cawthon’s claims that he was looking out for the best interests of everybody:
Is FNaF ending?
Scott Cawthon responded to the controversy by announcing his retirement from the series to focus on other projects and be with his family, though added that Five Nights at Freddy’s would continue without involvement.
In a post on his website, Cawthon indirectly addressed the criticisms against him, saying that he was thankful for the “tremendous love and support this last week, a lot of which has come from the LGBTQ community.”
“Is this the end of FNaF? No,” Scott wrote. “This just means that someone else will eventually be running the show; someone of my choosing, and someone that I trust. We will have to wait and see how it all plays out, but an announcement will be made at some point.”
It’s unclear what this means for the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach, which was slated for a 2021 release on PS4, PS5, and PC, though it seems that Cawthon is planning an announcement about who will take over the series in the near future.
In other news, it was revealed that Cyberpunk 2077 would return to the PlayStation Store later this year. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin’s demo also made it clear that the game is a Soulslike with an uncharacteristic easy mode attached to it.
