Last week, FNAF World launched on Steam early, surprising everyone. A day later, Scott Cawthon, its developer, apologised for rushing the game and pushing it out on Steam without important features. And today, the game has been taken off of Steam entirely.
Writing on the Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 news page, Scott Cawthon said that he wasn’t happy with the reception that FNAF World received — and, because of that, he’s going to offer refunds to anybody who purchased the game:
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.
For that reason, I’ve decided to remove the game from Steam. I’ve also asked Valve to make it so that the game can be refunded regardless of the amount of the time it has been owned, meaning that anyone can get a refund at any time. It may take them a while to set that up, but it will be in place soon.
I’m still going to work on FNaF World and polish it up. I’m busy creating a fully 3D overworld for the game. When I’m ready to update the game, I will replace the demo currently on GameJolt with the full game. From this point forward, the game will always be free.
I appreciate your support, and I encourage you all to refund your Steam game (even if you enjoyed the game), and download the new version when it becomes available on GameJolt. 🙂
That doesn’t mean development will cease, however. Cawthon is planning to continue working on the game, and will later release it for free on Game Jolt. It’s a great move that will work well towards restoring goodwill in the franchise, which was shaken a bit after the initial release of FNAF World. Here’s hoping that the finished game will be an improvement over what Cawthon originally put out, as the original game was kind of terrible.
Comments
4 responses to “Five Nights At Freddy’s RPG Pulled Off Steam Due To Bad Reviews”
i thought he was just cashing in on the name he made, i mean fair enough he can; its always a little interesting when it backfires
For the first time every, I think we are seeing Scott being over confident in his abilities. Granted, he has done a very good job with the main four games even when viewed from the perspective of the big name studios.
However, he clearly has gone above and beyond what is expected when the game goes wrong. Not only has he taken it back and is negotiating refunds but the game is planned to be back and for free later.
I can’t think of any AAA studio who has the balls to offer as such when a game goes back, let alone a refund.
Milking it he maybe; but he’s entitled to do so as long as he shows impeccable professionalism when it goes wrong.
I’m not even really comfortable with the idea of him making it available for free forever afterwards.
“Oops, I fucked up my launch, guess I’ll never make any money off this product again and will continue to spend development hours on it.” Seriously?
I mean think about it… if any other game studio released their game feature-incomplete and early, would you think consumers were being unreasonable if they demanded not only refunds, but that the game be free in perpetuity once it’s fixed and released?
You’d think they were high.
It seems a lot like what I’ve seen from amateur/budding professional artists who continually undervalue their time and their work. By all means, correct a fuckup, but this feels like some seriously uncomfortable overkill.
It’s entirely possible – if not likely – that the developer is suffering from impostor syndrome and his head is spinning from the insane streamer-inspired popularity (and financial success) of a work he doesn’t consider to be a multi-million dollar artistic achievement.
As long as he learns for his next game, whatever it maybe, he’ll be fine.
He acknowledged he was very premature in the release and over all I think he handled the outcome well.
Unlike a certain company that shall rename nameless where a game was released in a completely broken state, re-released months later and then pushed to have existing reviews marked as beta reviews (you know who you are!).