Five Nights at Freddy's World, the RPG based on the popular Five Nights at Freddy's horror game series from creator Scott Cawthon, has been pulled from Steam. The move comes only a mere four days after the game was given a surprise release on the platform, as is often the case with Cawthon's games.
This time, however, it appears Cawthon released the game too soon. On Friday, after numerous negative reviews, Cawthon wrote he shouldn't have released the game early after all and that he would be working on updates for it in the future.
Flash forward to today and the game is no longer available to purchase, with Cawthon issuing the following statement to fans (via Kotaku):
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. :)
So not only is Cawthon giving refunds to everybody who purchased the game, but he will be giving it away for free upon improving it. It's a huge gesture of goodwill to the fans that have given Cawthon so much. The fact that the developer can simply release a game he has worked on for months (and will now be updating) for free should give you an idea exactly how much money the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has given Cawthon over the last several years.
Players cited boring fights, confusing gameplay and poor visuals in many of the game's negative reviews. If Cawthon can fix all those problems, perhaps he will win over fans who have been burned with the latest (and supposedly last) game in his franchise. If nothing else, it's certainly much harder to complain about a game when you didn't pay anything for it.
