I’ve written a lot about gaming IP lately - specifically, about how much it is being explored in TV and movies in the past few years. In my defense, there has been a lot to stay - the break-out success of gaming projects is a win for Hollywood in a year that has otherwise been stuffed with not so great news related to strikes. In addition, as someone who works-within and concentrates-on the business of gaming, the overlap of gaming stories in TV and movies can be taken as far as an iron-clad sign of the rising cultural relevance of gaming to a more discreet signal on shifts in the tastes of media consumers.
Naturally, working within the gaming industry means I’m a hair biased both as it pertains to the quality of these projects if not the importance of them from either a business or cultural standpoint. The Last of Us and even more niche projects like Twisted Metal spoke to me not only as an unabashed fan but also with a non-negligible twinge of nostalgia. While both were objectively successful in terms of critical reception (for the most part) and revenue attainment (without question), I’d be lying if I said my own reception wasn’t at least partially subjective.
It’s for this reason that the recent film adaption of Five Nights at Freddy’s (after the gaming series of the same name) was intriguing. The film has already become a massive hit at the box office, despite a simultaneous release on Peacock and poor critical reviews. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the other major video game-inspired movie this year, The Super Mario Bros Movie, experienced a very similar trend. I’m well acquainted with the success of the massively popular, junior-horror-oriented video game series, but it’s not a series I’ve played with any regularity. I had not played these games for the same reason I had to (more or less) be forced to watch the movie: I’m a big baby as it pertains to horror content.
That said, Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) has historically (and arguably) been a series largely catered to children and pre-teens. Aside from my misgivings around a game which is ostensibly a vessel for jump-scares, I also wasn’t really in the demographic of the core fandom (though FNAF has accrued many adult fans over the years). That said, my now barely-adult son (18) and newly minted teenage son (13) very much were within the intended demographic during the time of peak popularity of these games (and in case it wasn’t clear, were also very much responsible for my viewing of the movie). Where I lack the starry-eyed reverence for this IP compared to (say) Super Mario Bros, they had in spades, which in turn afforded a decidedly more objective view of fandom that is otherwise a very biased conversation by definition. The success of FNAF compared to Super Mario Bros can be linked to very similar phenomena, but the fact that both were massively successful this year speaks volumes to new generational effects in the video gaming ecosystem and how older and younger video game fans have experienced gaming IP.
Which brings us back to the topic of my kids - those of you who are unacquainted with FNAF might question my judgment on whether it was appropriate to let them play a game that is about killer Chuck-E-Cheese-like animatronics possessed by murdered children. While I don’t think I’m a front runner for any “Father of the Year” awards, I have always encouraged my children’s exploration of various types of media (including interactive ones such as video games) with heavy doses of curation and guidance. In the case of FNAF, one could play these games without really knowing much of the gruesome undertones - the games themselves were semi-simple affairs where you were a security guard who was attempting to stop some scary animatronics from catching you. Fail, and your end was punctuated by a sudden and heart-pumping appearance of one of the creatures - however, no gore was shown and the violence was always implied. The game basically revolved around the player avoiding jack-in-the-box-esque scares that were essentially the jolt you might experience from someone shouting “BOO!” during a ghost story.
In fact, one could play these games blissfully unaware of the grim undertones or macabre backstory of the game, and merely enjoy the relatively sanitized shocks and jumps that characterize the gameplay (if that is your thing). For what is otherwise a fairly simple (albeit, successful) series of games, the amount of “lore” that has been stuffed into the FNAF IP by series creator Scott Cawthon is, well, scary…but much of it exists outside of the gameplay experience. This is what makes FNAF interesting as a case study in gaming IP: the convergence of YouTube-fueled play and story speculation, youthful imagination, and elaborate transmedia.
Cawthon has written over 40 books and graphic novels within the FNAF universe since the game’s release in 2014, all with the same relative look and feel of the “Goosebumps” series of adolescent horror books. If you’re light on time to read-up, the scale and breadth of the story thus far can be partially understood via an infographic from the FNAF community on Reddit. Complimentary media (particularly books) for popular game series aren’t uncommon - IP such as Warcraft, Mass Effect, and Cyberpunk have a number of novels written within their respective universes. However, those games tend to be narrative-driven affairs with dense stories built into the games, whereas FNAF as a game largely revolves around staring at screens and closing doors.
The story, like the violence, is intriguing in part because how much was left unsaid. The active imagination of children can fill in a lot of blanks, even more so when aided by hundreds of hours of FNAF-related content on YouTube from popular creators such as Matthew Rober Patrick (MatPat) and Cory DeVante Williams (CoryxKeshin). Their contribution to the success and intrigue of FNAF are evident as recently as the movie, where both YouTube creators had a cameo (including at least one catch phrase from their YouTube channel) that would otherwise go completely unnoticed by those that were not fans or had not followed the “lore” of the game through YouTube.
The significance of these bit parts certainly would have gone unnoticed by me, were it not from my well-immersed sons. My youngest described FNAF as “basically just jumpscares and lore” whereas my oldest offered explanations for otherwise unremarkable story beats with a number of potential implications pending your interpretation of the complex and sprawling lore of the FNAF universe.
This is partially why FNAF, along with The Super Mario Bros Movie from earlier this year, were massive box office/audience hits but largely panned by critics - their success is partially based upon being a fan, but what folks have been underestimating is just how many fans of these series there are. Like The Super Mario Bros Movie, the FNAF movie was positively stuffed with references, and lacking the appropriate appreciation for these references or an attachment to the core IP can make the film project resonate less (which is more or less the experience for critics). For what FNAF lacks in history compared to Super Mario Bros (a series that has been around nearly 30 years longer than FNAF) it makes up for in complimentary media and the core demographic’s fondness for consuming gaming content on YouTube.
The success of The Super Mario Bros Movie and FNAF speak to a convergence of interactive media in TV and movies which I’ve commented on heavily at various times and in various forums. FNAF, in my mind, is uniquely interesting insofar that it is plucks at a more recent nostalgic period for a younger generation of gamers, and did so by both the R.L. Stein-esque productivity of series creator Scott Cawthon and banking on enduring media habits of children who had their formative years around 2010.
In short, the age range for what constitutes a nostalgic era in gaming is expanding as rapidly as the fandom of gaming, and speaks to the breadth and complexity of this audience. A larger representation of gaming IP in Hollywood will continue due to the scale of the fandom around these IP, but the core demographic of this fandom (and how they were hooked into being fans) scales from the earliest game players (now in their 40s and 50s) to teenagers and young adults who grew up playing the likes of FNAF. In all cases, including more critically acclaimed entries this year such as The Last of Us (where the narrative-drive gameplay made for an easier ingress for critics), these adaptations have remained true to the stories, themes, and symbols of the games - the universal key to success for these project is that they remain true to the fandom.