So every Tuesday I hang out with a few of my friends and we usually end up talking about
a variety of random topics with gaming mostly taking the spotlight, but something that almost
always comes up in these discussions is the latest trend which has taken the internet
by storm.
Whether it was Five Nights at Freddy's, Undertale, or Bendy and the Ink Machine we often searched
for the answer of one question.
Why are these specific games so popular?
And while we're on the topic why do all these games seem to share the same fanbase?
How did the internet go from being obsessed with a Chuck E-Cheese themed Horror Game to
a 30's themed platformer?
Well, the seemingly simple way to answer this question would be to break each game down
like I've done in other videos and find a recurring theme or aspect within each one.
A thread that links all the games together so to speak.
Many have found that this thread exists BUT only for certain games.
Like How Five Nights, Tattletail, Hello Neighbor, and Bendy are all Indie Horror games.
However there seems to be no solid links between them and the run and gun platformer Cuphead
or the Pacifist RPG Undertale.
This seems to show that there is no link or thread connecting all these games into one
big chain and the only reason these games exploded in popularity is random chance.
However, what if I told you that by the end of this video I can show you how we can take
each of the individual links in the genres or theming of these games along with analyzing
social events at the time to not only explain why I believe these games got popular but
see in the next video how we can predict what the next extremely popular game will be.
I'm Etra from Etra Games and today we're going to try our best to figure out how this phenomenon
started, how everything is linked together, and how this chain of games will inevitably
end.
So as many of you know this chain of Five Nights at Freddy's, Undertale, Joy of Creation,
Tattletail, Hello Neighbor, Bendy and the Ink Machine, and Cuphead started with Five
Nights at Freddy's.
The game released around four years ago to supposedly be a day one success.
Yet one thing many people overlooked at the time is that day one breakout success seemed
to be the norm with just about every other horror game at the time with Amnesia, Slender,
and Anna, being prime examples.
What made all these horror games so popular at the time was the rise of big-name lets
players like Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and Pewdiepie all playing these games to capture
their terrified reactions for the world to see.
These horror games created their own chain very similar to the one we are analyzing today.
Yet what made Five Nights different than the other indie horror games played before?
And what made it ultimately create a more popular chain than the indie horror reaction
group that came before?
Well, I'm here to argue that the main reason it became so popular was not because of anything
from the game itself, but rather because of the time when it was released and the community
it created.
See, at the time it was released in August 2014 Five Nights attracted a struggling community.
At the time, a very, very, VERY specific sub-genre of people whose youtube channels were dedicated
to covering and occasionally making Minecraft and my little pony songs were having a rough
time.
At the time these unconventional music creators were struggling to survive on Youtube due
to the my little pony series going through a sudden 329 day hiatus, and with Minecraft
going on a similarly sudden 544 day update hiatus.
This decline in popularity caused by the hiatuses caused these channels to be desperate for
ideas that would keep their small businesses from falling apart.
They jumped through Disney music, Zelda music, and even tried their hand at some original
pieces.
These YouTubers tried everything to maintain their dying audiences and for them, all hope
seemed lost.
That is, until one of these channels called TheLivingTombstone struck gold by creating
a musical hit song creatively named "The Five Nights at Freddy's Song" With 120 Million
lifetime views it was a monumental success which led to more songs, which led to more
let's plays, which led to more theories and discussion which led to more songs, and so
on.
But Etra, you may ask ,"how do I supposedly know that out of all things to start this
insane craze of chained games and separated Five Nights at Freddy's from the other indie
horror games before, was a song made by a My Little Pony obsessed Youtuber?"
Well, it's simple really.
If we just type in the names of any of these games on youtube and search for the most viewed
video for Five nights at Freddy's, Undertale, Bendy and the Ink Machine, and Cuphead, the
number one search result for each and every single one is, you guessed it!
A fan-made hit song by these Youtubers.
And someone can point out that a fanmade song is not directly at the top of Hello Neighbor
and Tattletail in terms of views.
I'll actually be able to explain why later, but the point for now is that this musical
factor should at least be accounted for when talking about how these games link together
and each became popular.
It is also extremely important to note because this musical factor didn't exist for any
of the games in the previous horror game chain I mentioned.
Unless of course, you count the most popular Slenderman video.
An umm (laugh) "Epic" Spanish rap video between Slenderman and Jeff the Killer...
But my point is that let's players having the normal watchable challenge of them playing
a horror game, and the brand new musical factor that should be accounted for was created.
So let's put the watchable challenge and musical factor in a little chart here that
we'll get to later
Each game in the Five Nights saga took the internet by storm for the next year until
the series "ended" with Five nights 4.
Now the new Five Nights at Freddy's music creators were essentially jobless and once
again trying to find a new hit, things got even worse when Scott Cawthon basically cemented
the Five Nights name in the grave with the near universally hated FNAF World.
So our let's players once again played games that didn't create much of an uproar.
However, our wonderful musicians were once again jobless and desperate since they now
had created an audience for Five Nights music and couldn't go back to My Little Pony or
Minecraft due to those videos now getting little views.
Out of this desperation came many covers of songs from the show Steven Universe, a show
that gained massive popularity at the time due to a controversy regarding fanart in the
community, which was about the equivalent of the more recent now infamous IQ speech
in the Rick and Morty fanbase Then, djsmell a startup my little pony singer and fan of
both Undertale and Steven Universe created the now famous Undertale parody version of
the Steven Universe song Stronger than you.
On the let's play side of things Undertale had a unique watchable challenge not that
of Horror but of players making moral choices.
This was enough to dethrone Five Nights and set Undertale as the internet's next big hit.
After Undertale came, Joy of creation reborn, a fangame which showed what fans wanted to
the newly teased fifth installment of the five nights series.
By having a link to Five nights and a watchable challenge,the free-roam horror game became
decently popular.
When the actual fifth installment of the Five Nights franchise didn't deliver the free-roam
horror experience many wanted, eyes turned to the brand new free-roam horror game Tattletail
and by the same process Hello Neighbor shorty after with the musicians jumping on board
once the game was both linked to the previous in some way and had a watchable challenge.
Finally Bendy followed suit in the same way as the previous but instead of following it
was started with the musical element with DA games' breakout musical hit song "Build
Our Machine".
From there links were made to Cuphead due to the shared artstyle with Bendy.
Along with that it had a watchable challenge of difficulty and with this we can see a pattern
that creates 3.
Requirements or rules which all these games seem to follow.
Which makes these three rules the connecting thread between all of them.
The rules being on how to make an indie game a breakout success.
Number 1.
The game must have a watchable challenge for let's players.
So far this has been achieved through let's players getting scared by horror, frustrated
by difficulty, and by making moral choices
Number 2.
The game must either be started with a musical hit song or be linked to one of the past two
games in genre or style.
Number 3.
If the game becomes popular through a musical hit song it can change the trending genre
or style and if the game becomes popular through its link in genre or style, then it can change
the trending musical influence.
Using these rules we can see why each of these games became so popular, Well at least by
my best guess this may not be a perfect answer.
However using these rules we can explain how the smaller successes Doki Doki Literature
club and getting over it with Bennet Foddy fit into this chain, why the fan bases are
so hated, as well as be able to predict what the next super popular game will be, "hint
most likely it will be Bendy Chapter 4" But I'm out of time for today (if I make
the vid much longer than 10 minutes YouTube won't rank it as well) So if you enjoyed
this video consider subscribing to be notified of when part 2 comes out and hey feel free
to check out my other content, which breaks down why the games mentioned in this video
work gameplay wise.
As always regardless of your choice have a wonderful day and I will catch you all next
time!
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