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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13 August 2023 [1].

Five Nights at Freddy's (video game)

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Nominator(s): The Night Watch (talk) 04:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a horror video game that had an...interesting impact on internet culture. It spawned a media franchise with several sequels and spinoff media, and created an...interesting fanbase that remains to this day. The first game was described by the creator as a "lightning in a bottle", and had a generally positive response even as its sequels were less warmly received. I've been working on this article for a few weeks, and have included the best sourcing that I can find. I've expanded the Reception and Legacy sections that were subject to opposition in the previous FAC. I look forward to addressing your comments. The Night Watch (talk) 04:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • The cosplay is missing alt text
Did the alt text. I'm not sure what you mean by costume tag Nikkimaria. Can you please tell me what I missed? The Night Watch (talk) 17:36, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have a tag for the photograph, but the costume itself also has a copyright associated with it, since it's not a simple or utilitarian design - what's its status? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was unable to fully determine the costume's copyright status on commons, so I just went ahead and removed it. The Night Watch (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PCN02WPS

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Leaving a marker for a review soon. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 17:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This was a fun read (and a flashback to middle school), comments are below! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 18:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

  • "night security guard named Mike Schmidt. As Schmidt, the player must complete their night shift without being" → since "night security guard" is mentioned, I think the second mention of "night" is redundant and you can get away with "complete their shift"

Gameplay

  • The first paragraph is near-identical to parts of the lead; could this be reworded at all?
  • "Each animatronic character has distinct behaviors, and most of their movement takes place off-screen" → could you mention how many animatronic characters there are (I know they're listed in "Plot" but I think just throwing a number in here would be helpful)?
  • "The titular Freddy Fazbear character then appears playing the "Toreador Song", causing a game over" → this may seem very nitpicky, but does Freddy actually play the song himself, or does the song play from somewhere else before he attacks?
Freddy plays the song himself, at least according to the cited Gamezebo article.
  • "The player must conserve the power by using the doors, cameras, and lights sparingly, keeping enough electricity to last until 6:00 a.m." → This sentence feels unnecessary in its present form, since it just reiterates that the doors, cameras, and lights consume electricity, and then reiterates that each shift ends at 6 a.m.
I felt like this sentence would describe how the player is expected to play the game strategically, but I can remove it if needed. I have reworded it from "until 6am" --> "until the end of the shift".

Plot

  • "The player controls Mike Schmidt, who has signed up as a night security officer at a family pizza restaurant called "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza"." → this information is already given in the "Gameplay" section, so it doesn't need to be repeated here as well; I have no preference one way or the other as to which section it's kept in, I'll leave that to you to decide to which section it's more relevant
  • "the titular Freddy Fazbear" → this exact construction is used in the "Gameplay" section
  • "suggesting that the children's corpses were hidden inside" → is this mentioned by the in-game newspaper clippings? If not, it'll need a source to make sure it's not OR (even though it's a perfectly reasonable suggestion to make, given the context of the game)
Couldn't find one, so removed.
  • "On the fourth night, Schmidt's predecessor is implied to have been killed by one of the animatronics while recording the message" → As I can recall, the sound of an animatronic attacking is audible to the player on the phone call; I would be more explicit about how exactly this was implied rather than just saying "it was implied"
You were right, the audio implied it.

Development and release

  • "Hoping to create a new project that appealed to non-Christians" → is this stated explicitly in the source? I skimmed it and it looks like he didn't necessarily want to appeal specifically to people that aren't Christian, just that he didn't want to make another Christian game (though please let me know if I'm missing the quote)
I tried rewording it to be more accurate to the source
  • "The audio was produced out of several sound effects" → recommend replacing "out of several sound effects" with "using several sound effects"
  • "in addition to number of files that he purchased" → missing word ("a number of files")

Reception

  • "Critics considered FNaF to be frightening" → the abbreviation "FNaF", however obvious it is, isn't previously defined in the article before being used here (though in this particular instance I'd replace it with "it" since it's pretty clear you're talking about the game)
Would it help if I included the abbreviation in the title as Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF)?
Yes, I think that would be a good fix. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done.
  • "but to also detect the noises the animatronics made to indicate their approach" → in the universe of the game, the animatronics aren't making noises to indicate their approach, they're making noises as they approach and the player just happens to be able to hear them
  • "by relying not on jumpscares, but by pressuring the player with the possibility of one" → remove comma

Legacy

  • "Upon release, Five Nights at Freddy's was a financial success and gained a large following" → this makes it sound like the game was a smash hit the moment it was released; if "upon release" means "after it was released", then that is redundant since it can't become a hit until after it's released in the first place. I would recommend either dropping it or (if supported by the sources) emphasizing how quickly it became a hit ("Shortly after its release" or something similar)
  • "By 2015, Five Nights at Freddy's had become one" → the name of the game is used already to begin the paragraph, so you can just use "it had become" here
  • "the most shown video games on the platform" → what does "most-shown" mean? Are you talking about the number of people who recorded and uploaded gameplay or the number of viewers on the gameplay and Let's Play videos?
I believe the source said uploaded gameplay rather than views.
  • "platform, becoming featured by" → remove the comma after "platform" and change "becoming" to "and was"
  • I'd go with "Markiplier", "Jacksepticeye", and "Pewdiepie" instead of their real names, since those are far more commonly-known
  • "series and media franchise, beginning with the release of a sequel Five Nights at Freddy's 2" → remove comma from after "franchise" and add one after "sequel"
  • "Other than video games," → unnecessary since "written works" (definitionally not video games) are mentioned later in the sentence
  • "He intended to pass on management of the franchise to a different party" → did he?
I have no indication that the management was passed on, it just said that he intended to pass it on.
  • Of course, we're limited to the content in sources, but I'll admit I was a little surprised that MatPat wasn't mentioned in the second paragraph; he strikes me as the leading guy on FNaF "theories" and "lore" etc.
There was a surprising lack of academic material to use for the sourcing, and the book source that I used for the Legacy section was one of the best that I could find (it was edited by two assistant professors at Cal State). But I couldn't find any reliable material that mentioned MatPat and FNAF on Google Scholar, nor any significant reliable sources that reinforced his role via the WP:VGSE.
  • "and would later begin a program" → "and later began a program"

References

  • This might not be within the scope of FA criteria on referencing, so this one is totally optional, but if you want to tidy up the refs section and eliminate some duplicate refs (just with different page numbers), you can use {{sfn}} to cite different pages of a book (the one I'm spotting a lot is Clarke/Wang 2020) without copy-pasting the whole {{cite book}} template over and over again. I use this method a lot and I think it looks a lot cleaner and easier to navigate, see John C. Young (pastor)#References if you're interested.

That'll be it for now, I'll come back for another read-through and some spotchecks when these are taken care of. Ping me when you're ready for another look or if you have any questions! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 18:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've addressed some of the comments above. When you're ready, I would appreciate some spot-checks to help with the sourcing! Once again, thank you PCN02WPS! The Night Watch (talk) 04:43, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks

Here's some random spotchecks (footnote numbers from this version of the article):

  • FN 2: "Five Nights at Freddy's is a point-and-click survival horror game" - verified
  • FN 9: "Gamezebo called it a "brilliant horror experience" that capitalized on fear of the unknown" - verified (source says "induces" fear of the unknown, not "capitalizes on", but that sentence goes on to explain how it capitalizes on the fear that it has induced, so I'm good with this wording)
  • FN 10: "Reviewers felt that FNaF's gameplay mechanics were well-designed." - verified
  • FN 17: "A version for Android was launched on August 25, 2014," - not verified, the date in question is not mentioned in the source (as far as I can see)
  • FN 18: "followed by an iOS port on September 13, 2014" - maybe verified; the article is dated Sep 13, 2014, but it's not explicitly stated that the game released on that day, though I'm not going to raise too much of a fuss about this unless the Android date can't be confirmed for sure
  • FN 26: "franchise has expanded to include written works; The first of these, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes, was published in 2015" - verified
  • FN 32: "filming began in 2023 and the picture is set for release on October 27, 2023" - release date verified, filming date was not verified in FN 31 and FN 33 is offline, could you provide a quote?
    • Also - I don't know that FN 31 really adds anything; it barely mentions FNaF and doesn't give a release date or filming year for the movie explicitly, so I'm not sure that it's needed (at least in verifying this particular information)
  • FN 35: "Cawthon has occasionally commented on some fan theories, including one presented by the YouTuber MatPat" - verified (glad to see MatPat turn up in a book, of all things!)

All in all, spotchecks are pretty good, just a few things that need attention. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 23:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you PCN02WPS! I had some surprising trouble with the iOS and Android release dates. I looked it up on the FNAF Fandom website, but couldn't find any reliable sources to verify those dates and I was worried that they would go unconfirmed. Thankfully some advanced source searching allowed me to verify the exact dates using Gry Online, a Polish gaming RS. I was also able to find a source supporting that filming began in 2023. The Night Watch (talk) 00:22, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@PCN02WPS Just a nudge. The Night Watch (talk) 16:54, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome that those additional sources were able to be found. I think the prose and sourcing is up to standard and I am happy to throw my support behind this nom. Best of luck with the rest of the FAC! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 17:25, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vortex3427

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Disclosure: this is my first time reviewing an FAC. Didn't catch anything except a few nitpicks.

  • As Schmidt redundant, as you just stated that they were playing as Schmidt in the last sentence
  • Optional: I know it isn't required, but would it be better to put a citation for the newspaper clippings as this isn't easily accessible in the game? There are usable sources like this one.
  • in addition to number of files
  • There's a contraction wasn't in the Reception section.
  • Gamezebo described the sounds as excellent This reads weird. Maybe change "sounds" to "sound design".
  • In Legacy, due to its inclusion doesn't seem appropriate because it kinda implies that the game isn't the sole subject of the Let's Plays
  • several written works It's more than several with the extremely large anthology series
  • received a negative reputation Developed seems more appropriate for reputation
  • The detail about the Fazbear Fanverse Initiative would be more appropriate on the general FNaF franchise article, rather than included on here. The games aren't based solely on the first one and the Fanverse began six years later
Removed the content
  • Duplicated references to Indie Games in the Digital Age p. 74
Removed duplicate

@The Night Watch: That's it for me! Overall, I'm gonna support.

Thank you Vortex3427! I believe that I have addressed your comments. The Night Watch (talk) 03:56, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

NØ

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Hello once again! I really enjoyed Kingdom Two Crowns so I am reviewing this one as well if that is okay.

  • "the player takes the role of Mike Schmidt" - Perhaps "the player takes on the role of Mike Schmidt"
  • "with many considering it to be a frightening and distinct horror game" - Would be fine without "to be" as well
  • "A film adaptation produced by Blumhouse Productions is scheduled to be released on October 27, 2023" - "A film adaptation by Blumhouse Productions is scheduled to be released on October 27, 2023" maybe, since the production role is implied by the name "Blumhouse Productions"
  • "The main game has a total of six levels, comprising the five main nights and an extra sixth night" - The repetition of "night" can be reduced: "The main game has a total of six levels, comprising the five main nights and an extra sixth one"
  • There's two usages of "one of the animatronics" in the Plot section which could optionally be replaced by "an animatronic"
  • "Scott Cawthon had developed several adventure games marketed towards Christians, all of which underperformed financially" - I prefer the use of "commercially" instead of "financially" for these types of usages.
  • "He coded the game with the Clickteam Fusion 2.5 engine, and used Autodesk 3ds Max to model the 3D graphics." - The comma in this sentence should be removed.
  • "Gamezebo described the sound design as excellent, suggesting that players wear headphones not just improve the experience, but to also detect the noises the animatronics made as they approached" - There seems to be a missing "to" either after "headphones" or after "just"
  • Steam (service) is linked a second time in the Legacy section. While I believe this is now allowed, I just wanted to bring this to your attention in case it is unintentional.
That's all from me and I would be more than happy to support this nomination once these are addressed. I see it has received a source review already, but all the sources and their formatting looks good to me as well. If you have some time later, I would appreciate any comments on my current FAC but this is by no means necessary.--NØ 17:09, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @MaranoFan! I believe that I have addressed your comments. The Night Watch (talk) 00:30, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by David Fuchs

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Forthcoming. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:29, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • For the lead, I don't think you need exact dates for anything after the initial release; it's the lead, there's an infobox right next to it with exact dates and the article body if they want a run down. You can just summarize the later releases and mention the year if you must.
  • "The event left Cawthon less inclined towards making Christian games" — what event? Regaining his desire for game development (the spiritual experience?) or (more likely) the bad performance of the Christian games?
  • "He was inspired to make a horror-focused experience after receiving negative reviews towards his construction and management game Chipper & Sons Lumber Co." - was this another of the Christian games? The timeframe here is a little hard to parse. If Chipper & Sons was before his pivot, it makes sense to mention it earlier, and then loop back to the animatronic comments.
  • The reception section has a bit starting by talking about how FNAF doesn't rely on jumpscares, and then follows up by people talking about the jumpscares getting repetitive. I think a little more structure to this section would make it clearer there was differing opinions on them (and that they exist.)
  • "He intended to pass on management of the franchise to a different party" — so what happened, if he didn't pass on management? It's also weird this fact, which doesn't have to do with franchise spinoffs and takes place in 2021, comes before the 2017 mention of the film.

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:11, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Done.
  • It was the spiritual experience, thanks for catching that.
  • It was after his pivot. Should I mention that it was a secular project or something along those lines?
  • Working on restructuring the jumpscare bit.
  • There has been no news on if he has passed on management of the franchise, just that he "planned" to do so. Considering that he is one of the screenwriters on the upcoming film, it appears as though he still has effective control of FNAF.
The Night Watch (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@David Fuchs follow up ping. The Night Watch (talk) 00:40, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Source formatting is consistent save for the Brey, Clarke & Wang 2020 one and all necessary information is there, but I confess that I don't know much about the sources beyond what is said at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources - which doesn't list Clickteam and Dread Central. "A voice message mentions "The Bite of '87", an incident which is implied to have led to the loss of a person's frontal lobe and forced animatronic mobility during the day to be prohibited. " is this something explicitly supported by the game itself? For this time, spot-check only upon request. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:44, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus searching up Dread Central in the RSN, the most recent discussion mentioned that it is a critic on Rotten Tomatoes and has been quoted by several other RSes. It has also won a few awards on reporting. Clickteam is the publisher for the mobile and console versions and is the company behind the game development software that Scott Cawthon used to create Five Nights at Freddy's. I think Clickteam falls under WP:ABOUTSELF for the purposes of sourcing as it is used sparingly in the article. About the "Bite of '87", the exact text of the message is here under section Night 1. The voice message seems explicit. The Night Watch (talk) 17:58, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I presume that these sources were consulted and either used or ruled out? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of them were college students writing papers, and a substantial amount of the material that the sources discussed talked about the series as a whole (or grouped the series along with other horror games) and not necessarily the impact of the first game. There were some that cited Wikipedia itself. Brey, Clarke & Wang even noted that the game had a dearth of proper academic coverage in their book chapter on the subject. The Night Watch (talk) 19:37, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, then. With the caveats regarding not knowing most sources and no spotcheck, mind you. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:19, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PCN02WPS spot-checked about 10% of the sources, but feel free to do some other checks if you think it would be good. Any sources stand out to you as questionable? WP:VG/S links to a few discussions on the reliability of the sources. The Night Watch (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not so much that I have specific concerns about a particular source but more that if there is a source that is unsuitable but only a videogame expert would know that, I won't notice and thus my comment here shouldn't be interpreted as approving of such a source. As for spotchecks, I usually do them only on request b/c they take time and I don't always have time and interest. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for the clarification. And thank you for the review! The Night Watch (talk) 19:31, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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