 Good evening. Five Nights at Freddy's is a multi-million dollar indie horror game franchise that took the internet by storm back in 2014 and has not let go since. Gary's Mod is a Half-Life 2 mod that rebuilds the game as a creative sandbox tool, technically dating all the way back to 2004. At a first glance, these two games couldn't be more different from each other. But weirdly enough, they actually have a lengthy and quite interesting shared history. Nowadays they have an almost inescapable community overlap. Some of the most popular Gary's Mod workshop add-ons and YouTube videos are centered around Five Nights at Freddy's content. And there have been channels like Venturi and Tail which built entire online careers off the back of this phenomenon. But weirdly enough, despite such a seemingly strong relationship, there's an undying bitterness in the G-mod community towards Five Nights at Freddy's and its fans. I have even seen it said that FNAF is responsible for ruining Gary's Mod. For such charged statements to be flying, surely something must have happened. What reasons do people have to hold this conviction? And how much weight does it actually hold? To understand the discourse around Five Nights at Freddy's and Gary's Mod's relationship, it's important to understand both games' history and how their bond came to be in the first place. As stated at the beginning, G-mod was created in 2004 by Gary Newman, and was originally little more than a testbed for the cut-fizz gun weapon from Half-Life 2. Once the mod began to evolve into a promising sandbox game, it caught the attention of Half-Life 2's developers Valve, who saw potential. Valve have historically been very generous with the tools and opportunities they afford to their community, and struck a deal with Gary to distribute and sell the game on Steam as a commercial product. As you probably know, Gary's Mod went on to be a massive success, for both Valve, who now had stake in one of the biggest most bubbling game communities on the internet, and for Gary Newman's company, Facepunch, who were now officially responsible for one of the most popular online games in the world, and would go on to use the newfound resources to fund other successful projects like Rust. A big part of Gary's Mod's success was its accessibility. Not just for players, but for developers and modders, too. For starters, the game runs on the Source Engine, which has long been considered one of the most amateur-friendly game engines to develop with, due to its intuitive tools and lack of a price tag. That might sound crazy to some, given the infamy of Source Spaghetti, but try to remember that the Hammer Editor is still often used in universities to teach game dev courses. Anyway, G-mod also makes use of Lua to make programming online multiplayer game modes very easy, hence the exhaustively long game mode browser we have today. This remarkable accessibility has allowed G-mod and also other Source Engine titles like Left 4 Dead and TF2 to be easily used as a vehicle for passing trends, and that is a huge part of why the Source Engine has kept such a big cult following online for so long. Anyway, by the time 2014 rolls around, Gary's Mod had just made the leap from G-mod 12 to 13, easily the most drastic update in the game's history, and a fledgling indie horror game called Five Nights at Freddy's has begun to sweep the internet. There's only one problem. Fans looking to make FNAF community content were left empty-handed due to many of the game's assets being unreleased to the public, and a solution presented itself in the form of Gary's Mod. With its simple tools, built-in support for workshop content and existing popularity with young people, Five Nights at Freddy's fan content such as models of its characters and maps based on the game's locations quickly made a home for themselves in Gary's Mod, and people didn't really mind the migration that much since the game had already dealt with trends like Slenderman in the past. But quickly, Five Nights at Freddy's foothold turned into an online empire, and what started out as a niche indie game quickly became a global horror phenomenon, with FNAF going on to sell truckloads of games, books, and other merchandise. There's no getting around it. Five Nights at Freddy's somehow became one of the biggest games of our generation, and revolutionized the indie video game scene as we know it. However, given how amateur the game was, the internet of course started to do what it does best. It started dunking. Of what I remember, Vinesauce Vinnie and German985, both streamers well known in the Source Engine community even back in 2014, peeved their audiences when they played the game, as Vinnie appeared totally unimpressed with it, Good game. and German played it in character as Demon Lord Zaraxos, to the distraught of people who desperately hope to see him get startled by the jump scares in real time. Oh, boo, here we come, he's gonna come. Oh! Oh boy, don't get scared. Oh! Eh, go ahead, make your comment about how German was the original VTuber. We're all waiting. Anyway, this wave of dissidents against FNAF actually worked to GMOD's favor, because it turned out not only was GMOD a good practical tool to make Five Nights at Freddy's fan content, it was also a good way to parody the game. Prominent GMOD content creators like Das Bo shit would parody FNAF using the same assets that were made by fans, and rack up millions of views doing it. Today, FNAF is no longer a single indie horror game, but rather a giant series of games that have each generated billions of views and millions in revenue. Much more popular than GMOD, despite coming on the scene way later. But GMOD still stands as a small and integral part of its legacy. Now, there's probably some things I missed in there, given that a lot of this stuff happened when I was still pretty young, and I never really got that much into the FNAF games past the original, but if you'd like to get to know more about these two games' connections from a guy who has more of a FNAF community insider perspective, I'd recommend DAGs' great video FNAF and Source and Unbreakable Bond, which I made a sneak guest appearance in. Anyway, to get back to the point, to its detractors, Five Nights at Freddy's popularity was an accelerator in bringing GMOD away from being a niche valve-oriented community to a glorified virtual playground for children. But how much real damage did FNAF do to the community? And is it really fair to blame the game, its creators, or its players for it? Let's start out by evaluating the things Five Nights at Freddy's is most often blamed for in the GMOD community. 1. Lowering the average age of GMOD's community and dumbing down its player base. 2. The dilution of Gary's mod's social spaces and the saturation of its workshop content. And 3. Chipping at Valve characters' identities by using them as generic humans for their stories. Let's start from the top. Is it true that Five Nights at Freddy's brought a lot of children to the GMOD community? Yes. Undeniably. And this influx of children to the game could have led to a rise in toxicity as well. But I don't think it's really fair to blame FNAF for bringing children into GMOD's sphere. Let's not forget GMOD was already very popular with children, and honestly wouldn't have survived so long without them. I for once started playing GMOD when I was just 5 years old, and that was long before FNAF came out. But did GMOD's community spaces get worse as a result of the integration? There's definitely a case to be made there. Saves and dupes to this day are flooded with low effort FNAF spam, and I even recall people trying to start a stop-making FNAF dupes movement back in the day. And in the aftermath of the collision, Garry's Mod content on YouTube did get even more kid-catered. You'd be hard-pressed to find popular GMOD content today that isn't expressly created for little kids. Once again, though, while this content spam is undeniably cringy, it's still pretty much harmless. And really, were you actually expecting the GMOD dupes or saves tab to be filled with super substantial content in the first place? And finally, did FNAF chip at Valve characters' identities by using them as generic humans for their stories? Yes, it did. And it's pretty hilarious in some contexts. Seeing people who have never played a half-life game in their life use G-Man to represent a serial child murderer in their edgy story. Hell, this TF2 Little Jack model has probably been used in more FNAF projects than it has in TF2 once. However, messing up G-Man's face and perverting Valve's assets in other ways has always been an integral part of GMOD's identity. And I don't think it's fair to hold the line and tell FNAF people they can't join in on the fun, too. I always thought it was kind of pretentious when the guy who made Cry of Fear made a big stink online about how people making GMOD screenshots of his characters was going to ruin everyone's ability to take his precious game seriously. Keep in mind that was 10 years ago, I'd like to think the guy has matured a bit since then. But still, I feel the same way about the attitude on display here. Feel free to disagree, but overall I think this is a silly thing to be upset about and that it's kind of unfair to blame FNAF for it, all things considered. And I do want to bring some attention to some of the good that came out of FNAF and GMOD's collision. One, FNAF introduced potentially millions to the game and the Source Engine. Duh. Two, it fostered a fun community for young people and no doubt played part in many childhoods. And three, it inspired a lot of people to develop skills and model creation and mapping. To start from the top point, it's undeniable that GMOD's connection to this massive phenomenon helped cement its own cult status and keep it relevant in pop culture. The game lives through new blood, yada yada, you get the point. Second, the FNAF sub-community in GMOD is really strong. There are entire servers dedicated to FNAF role play that I have never dared enter myself, but that I know were at least at one point immensely popular. If I was like 7 years old and obsessed with FNAF, I imagine I'd be logging on to those every day. And honestly, there's probably worse places for your kids to be spending their time online. Probably. Third, some of the content that came out of the GMOD FNAF overlap was genuinely very impressive. For example, GMOD mappers often advertise their FNAF maps as having events, which was a humble way of saying we rebuilt FNAF mechanics and AI using only map logic and scripting, and we're also technically the first people to create co-op multiplayer for the game. But to wrap things up, here's I guess my closing statement. At the time FNAF came out, GMOD had recently rolled over to its most recent version, GMOD 13, and was experiencing a YouTuber renaissance, with a lot of child-cated creators like Venturi and Tail and Yogg's cast dipping their toes into the game's waters. This was happening even before FNAF came out. Given that kids were being introduced to both games around the same time, and given GMOD's accessible and transformative nature, it's hard to imagine a world where demand for Five Nights at Freddy's GMOD content wouldn't have been sky-high. And if not FNAF, it probably would have been something else. I also think a good amount of the problems FNAF gets blamed for are actually a byproduct of the GMOD 13 transition fucking up the game's community cohesion. It's very possible that the FNAF migration on top of that might have made the whole situation worse, but I also think what happened is mostly a natural progression of GMOD's life cycle. Being an easily transformable sandbox game means it was always going to be appealing to kids. Just look at Minecraft. But hey, eventually kids grow up. Who knows how many of these FNAF kids went on to become talented animators, modelers, or mappers in their own rights? Now I don't want anyone to misconstrue what I'm saying here. You are more than allowed to reminisce and feel upset about how the GMOD landscape has changed. Lord knows that looking back on ye olden days of GMOD is part of what builds my channel's foundation. But I think it's important to remember that GMOD's tendency to collide with trendy media is a big part of what will keep it going for decades to come, unless sandbox succeeds in replacing it. This video is simply my opinion and my opinion is based on my own experiences and biases. I'd love to know what you guys think in the comments. Thanks for watching this Halloween special, I guess, and have a good day. I do not like that Richter Overtime guy, he sucks. He sucks my big robot Willy, I do not like him. Get the fuck up, Freddy. Anyways, guys, you need to subscribe to Richter Overtime on YouTube if you love Gary's mode and if you love Five Nights at Freddy's. Don't, don't be like Freddy. Subscribe today. Thank you.