While fan works are often vulnerable to DMCA takedowns from copyright holders (especially when based on Nintendo properties), Five Nights At Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon is choosing to support his fan creators instead. As announced on the FNAF subreddit, the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative will not only provide funding for fangames, it will also support developers in getting their games on consoles and represented with merch.
In the post, which has since become the subreddit’s most upvoted ever, Cawthon describes the initiative as a collaboration with the developers of some of the most popular FNAF fan games. The indie horror game became a cult hit in the early days of gaming YouTube, spawning seven main games, a number of spinoffs, novels, and even a film adaptation that is reportedly still in production despite numerous delays.
Cawthon says that, while he has contributed funding to the fan games involved, he has stayed out of the development side, instead preferring to let the creators take the projects where they will. The “initial” lineup includes the following games as described by Cawthon:
