Scott Cawthon

• 1. Introduction

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  Scott Cawthon, an American game developer, once made computer games that brought in about $40 or $50 each month. That figure comes from a profile by Calum Marsh in The New York Times. Cawthon later created Five Nights at Freddy's, a horror series that grew into a full media franchise. He led development of eight main games and four spin-offs. He also wrote novels and screenplays, and he produced two feature films. How did a maker of Christian adventure games end up building one of horror's most recognizable series? What happened in the years when nothing he made seemed to work? And why did he announce his retirement in 2021 while still holding the rights to everything he had built?

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• 2. Faith and Early Games

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  Scott Braden Cawthon was born on the 4th of June 1978 in Houston, Texas, to Linda and Joseph Cawthon. He has one sister and one brother. In 1996 he attended the Art Institute of Houston, where he learned to create computer graphics. He taught himself game development with an engine called Clickteam Fusion. A Christian, he joined Hope Animation, a group of Christian artists, and animated religious films. Those included Noah's Ark: Story of the Biblical Flood and a version of The Pilgrim's Progress, both from 2004. From 2001 to 2009 he also animated educational videos for a company called Rock n' Learn, on subjects such as the human body and telling time. His first professional game was Iffermoon. His religious games were self-funded and adventure-minded. The Pilgrim's Progress: The Video Game arrived in 2011, adapting the religious allegory into a role-playing game. Its enemies included Beelzebub, Apollyon, Shame, and Giant Despair. The Desolate Hope followed in 2012, set in what the source calls a "dark, brooding, and twisted industrial landscape." Its hero is a robotic coffee pot trying to rescue a fetus that is being used as a scientific specimen. Rock Paper Shotgun praised the art as a hand-crafted, bizarre throwback to the nineties. Kill Screen later observed that the adventure themes and unusual art of these early works would resurface in FNaF World. After Five Nights at Freddy's appeared, some players read The Desolate Hope as a pro-life message. Cawthon replied that the game "was not designed with abortion specifically in mind." His Christian games were generally well received. Even so, they did not earn enough to support his wife and two children.

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• 3. The Low Point

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  By 2013 Cawthon had reluctantly stopped making religious games. He turned to cheap computer games and free-to-play mobile titles that could give him steady income, and he took programming and retail work on the side. That year he sent a family-friendly game, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., to Steam Greenlight. It was a resource management game with anthropomorphic animals, and the player character was a beaver. Players and reviewers, including James Stephanie Sterling, mocked it. They found the characters unintentionally creepy and compared them to scary animatronics. One writer called it an example of the uncanny valley. The ridicule and his money troubles left Cawthon depressed. He came to believe he had wasted his life as a game developer, and he tried to pursue other professions. His faith broke down as well. In his words, "Either God didn't exist, or God hated me." Then his life insurance policy was cancelled after the company learned that he had told his doctor about suicidal thoughts. He realized that "now even my death had no value." He asked God to "use me somehow." His faith returned. He took a lesson from the reaction to Chipper & Sons and resolved to make something that was scary on purpose. The result was Five Nights at Freddy's.

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• 4. The Freddy Years

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  Steam Greenlight was only one stop for Five Nights at Freddy's in the summer of 2014. Cawthon posted a trailer and later a demo there, then submitted the game to IndieDB, where it gained popularity. He also sent it to Desura. Steam's Greenlight accepted it in August 2014. Critics received it well, and it became the subject of many popular Let's Play videos on YouTube. A prequel, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, came out later that year. Soon afterward Cawthon wiped his personal website and left only an image of the word "offline." The site then began to show teasers for Five Nights at Freddy's 3, released in March 2015. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 followed in 2015, with a free Halloween update. Next came FNaF World, a role-playing game that abandoned the formula of the earlier titles. It launched on the 21st of January 2016 and drew mixed reviews because of glitches and other problems. Cawthon pulled it from Steam four days later. An altered version appeared free on Game Jolt on the 8th of February. Sister Location was teased on the 21st of May 2016 and released on the 7th of October, to generally good reviews. A Custom Night update arrived on the 1st of December. On the 3rd of July 2017, Cawthon announced the cancellation of a sixth main game. He said he had been neglecting other parts of his life. The release of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator on the 4th of December 2017 showed the cancellation had been a joke. Ultimate Custom Night, the seventh main installment, came out free on Steam on the 28th of June 2018. It features over 50 characters from the franchise. In a Steam post about upcoming projects, Cawthon said console port deals were signed and that virtual reality and augmented reality games were coming.

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• 5. Steel Wool and Fan Games

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  In early 2019 Cawthon announced a partnership with the studio Steel Wool Studios. He would mainly handle storylines, character design, and gameplay. The first result was Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, a virtual reality game released on the 28th of May 2019 for PC and PlayStation VR. A downloadable update, Curse of Dreadbear, followed on the 23rd of October. The augmented reality game Special Delivery came out free for iOS and Android on the 25th of November 2019, after teasers on Illumix's YouTube channel. The tenth installment was teased on the 8th of August 2019, the first game's fifth anniversary. The image showed a modern shopping mall with a laser tag arena, an arcade, a large cinema, and a Freddy Fazbear's Pizza restaurant. In the main square, 1980s-style versions of Freddy Fazbear, Chica, and two other animatronics performed for an excited crowd. Later teasers introduced Glamrock Freddy, the shadowy figure of Vanny, and an alligator-like character named Montgomery Gator. On the 21st of April 2020, a list of upcoming Funko products leaked the characters' names and the title Five Nights at Freddy's: PizzaPlex. Cawthon confirmed the leaks on Reddit the next day, but said the title was not official and was only for Funko. At a PlayStation 5 Showcase on the 16th of September 2020, the game was revealed as Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, with ray tracing and free-roam gameplay. In December 2020 Cawthon delayed it to 2021, saying its scope was too great to finish by year's end. Meanwhile, on the 21st of August 2020, he announced a plan to fund and publish games made by fans. He would stay out of the creative work and offer marketing, publishing support, and licensing help. The announced list included the One Night at Flumpty's series, the Five Nights at Candy's series, The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection, Popgoes Evergreen, and Five Nights at Freddy's Plus. The first release was a mobile port of One Night at Flumpty's, on Android on the 31st of October 2020 and on iOS on the 18th of November. One Night at Flumpty's 3 arrived on the 31st of October 2021.

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• 6. Books and Guidebooks

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  In May 2013, before the horror series existed, Cawthon released a story called "The Tearing" under the pseudonym "Michael Parsins." The work is now partly lost. His first Five Nights at Freddy's novel, first teased as The Untold Story and renamed The Silver Eyes, appeared on the 17th of December 2015 as an Amazon ebook. Cawthon said it came out earlier than planned because of a mistake on Amazon's part. He wrote it with Kira Breed-Wrisley. On the 24th of June 2016, he announced a three-book deal with Scholastic Corporation, which would reprint The Silver Eyes in paperback that October. The Twisted Ones came out on the 27th of June 2017. It follows Charlie, who is drawn back into her father's frightening creations as she tries to move past the events of the first book. The Freddy Files, the first official guidebook, was released on the 29th of August 2017. It holds character profiles, easter eggs, playing advice, and fan theories. The Survival Logbook followed on the 26th of December 2017, with no Kindle edition. It looks like an ordinary children's activity book, with a word search, grid drawing, and fill-in-the-blank pages. Fans found that every one of those activities hid secrets about the lore. The third novel, The Fourth Closet, appeared on the 26th of June 2018. On the 26th of December 2019, Fazbear Frights #1: Into the Pit launched an eleven-book series of short horror tales. The Tales from the Pizzaplex series began in 2022 and ran to eight volumes by 2023. That same year an official movie novel was published, co-written with Andrea Waggener.

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• 7. Road to the Screen

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  In April 2015, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that it had acquired the rights to adapt the series into a film. Roy Lee, David Katzenberg, and Seth Grahame-Smith were set to produce. Grahame-Smith said they would work with Cawthon to make "an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie." Gil Kenan signed on in July 2015 to direct and to co-write with Tyler Burton Smith. By January 2017, Cawthon reported that delays and roadblocks, partly from "problems within the movie industry as a whole," had put the film "back at square one." He promised to be involved "from day one this time." In March 2017 he posted a photo of himself at Blumhouse Productions. Producer Jason Blum confirmed in May that Blumhouse was on board. Kenan said in June that he was no longer directing after Warner Bros. turned the project around. Blumhouse announced on the 13th of February 2018 that Chris Columbus would direct and also produce with Blum and Cawthon. That August, Cawthon said on a Steam forum that the film would adapt the first game, with any later films based on the second and third. In November 2018 he announced that the script had been scrapped. In September 2021, Blum revealed that script problems remained and that Columbus was no longer attached. Emma Tammi was announced as director in October 2022, and she co-wrote the film with Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback. Five Nights at Freddy's reached theaters on the 27th of October 2023. Critics reviewed it negatively, but it grossed over $296 million. A sequel was reported in 2024, again with a Cawthon screenplay. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 was released on the 5th of December 2025, also to negative reviews.

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• 8. Charity and Retirement

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  In November 2019, Cawthon said he would make a game for a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraiser hosted by the YouTuber MatPat. MatPat would play it on a livestream with Dawko and Markiplier. The game, Freddy in Space 2, came out on Game Jolt on the 3rd of December. Hidden dollar amounts inside it set how much Cawthon would donate. He said $500,000 was available to find, but warned that the game was hard. His playtester had needed five hours to finish it. The stream gave the game a two-hour slot. Markiplier kept playing after the stream ended and found a last hidden $100,000, which brought the total to $451,200. Cawthon donated the full $500,000 to St. Jude. In June 2021, his publicly available political donations spread on Twitter and made him a trending topic. All but two of them went to Republican politicians, including Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump. The exceptions were Tulsi Gabbard and the former Indiana House Speaker John R. Gregg, both Democrats. On Reddit he confirmed his support for the Republican Party and described himself as pro-life. He said he had been doxxed and had received threats of violence and home invasion. Reactions on social media were mixed, and some were negative. On the 16th of June 2021, he posted a retirement message on his website and thanked his followers. He said he wanted to spend more time with his children. He planned to name a successor and keep a lesser role. As of 2025, he still holds overarching creative control and exclusive rights to the franchise. His first game after retiring was Freddy in Space 3: Chica in Space, released on the 18th of October 2023 as a supposed tie-in for the film. On the 9th of March 2024, he appeared on The Game Theorists in MatPat's final episode as host. It was his first public video appearance. Cawthon lives in Salado, Texas, with his wife and six children. One of his sons, Braden Cawthon, is also an author.

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