Scott Cawthon

**Scott Braden Cawthon** is the original developer of the *Five Nights at Freddy's* franchise, including the Clickteam era of games, spin-offs, and troll games.

He is the voice actor for Phone Guy in *Five Nights at Freddy's 1-3*, *Ultimate Custom Night* and *FNaF VR: Help Wanted* as well as Phone Dude in *Five Nights at Freddy's 3* and and *FNaF VR: Help Wanted*.

He was also part of Hope Animation, which is a "project of Christian animators" aiming to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ.

## **About**

**Scott Cawthon** is a 45-year-old American independent video game developer, animator and writer whose best known for his creation & evolution of the *Five Nights at Freddy's* franchise. He has created other games and animations such as *Chipper & Son's Lumber Co.*, *There is No Pause Button!*, *Rage Quit*, *The Pilgrim's Progress*, and many more.

While he is a game designer by "trade", he is first and foremost a storyteller at heart. He was a graduate of The Art Institute of Houston and now lives in Texas with his wife and six children.

Cawthon revealed his first game (titled *Doofas*) during a live stream; he made the game when he was a child. This game later became a troll game as the "demo" of *Ultimate Custom Night*. His first official games were released in the early 2000s, one of the earliest known being *RPG Max*, released in 2002. He later joined Hope Animation, where he created animations for children based on Christian values. He is a graduate of the Art Institute of Houston. He had also worked in Dollar General and Target stores as late as 2014.

On March 19, 2007, Cawthon uploaded the first part of an eight-part series titled *The Pilgrim's Progress* to his YouTube channel, which was released as a full-length film on DVD two years prior. The animation is a retelling of John Bunyan's novel of the same name. After releasing *The Pilgrim's Progress*, Cawthon developed several games, including *Sit N' Survive*, *Chipper and Sons Lumber Co.*, and *The Desolate Hope*. Some of these were submitted to Steam Greenlight. While *The Desolate Hope* made it through the process, some games, most notably *Chipper and Sons Lumber Co.*, were heavily criticized by prominent reviewers for having characters that moved and interacted with each other like animatronic machines. While initially discouraged, almost to the point of stopping game development completely, Cawthon eventually decided to use the animatronic-like characters to his advantage, sparking the development of *Five Nights at Freddy's*.

In November 2019, Cawthon announced that he would create a game specifically for a fundraising event for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital being held by MatPat along with fellow YouTubers Dawko, and Markiplier on a live stream. The game, Freddy in Space 2 was released December 3 on Game Jolt, included dollar amounts hidden throughout that dictated how much Cawthon would donate following the stream. He boasted a total of $500,000 was available to find but included that it was difficult and doubted they’d be able to find it as his playtester had taken five hours to complete the game. Originally, the game had a two-hour slot to be featured in the live stream, however, Markiplier continued playing after the stream had ended and managed to find a final hidden $100,000 that raised the total end amount for Cawthon to donate to $451,200. Cawthon then went on to donate the full $500,000 to St. Jude's.

On December 26, 2019, the first book in the eleven-book series, Fazbear Frights #1: Into the Pit was released on Amazon.com in Kindle & Paperback formats.

On June 12, 2021, his name trended on Twitter when his political donations were identified in public databases and discussed on Twitter. Cawthon subsequently confirmed in a Reddit post that he is a member of the Republican Party, has donated thousands of dollars in support of conservative political candidates (although he also made a one-off donation to Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 presidential primary campaign), and is pro-life, sparking both major backlash and messages of support from Five Nights at Freddy's fans. He stated that his personal information and address had been doxed. He maintains that he loves all of his fans regardless of orientation, religion, gender, or race, and that his donations to any political candidates are not out of prejudice.

On June 17, 2021, Scott Cawthon officially announced on his website that he was retiring from FNaF in general to focus on raising his six children. The FNaF IP will be given to an undisclosed third party.

## **Games Developed**

### Five Nights at Freddy's Franchise

* *Five Nights at Freddy's*
* *Five Nights at Freddy's 2*
* *Five Nights at Freddy's 3*
* *Five Nights at Freddy's 4*
* *FNaF World*
* *Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location*
* *Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator*
* *Ultimate Custom Night*
* *Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted*(in collaboration with Steel Wool Studios)
* *Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery* (2019) (in collaboration with Illumix)
* *Freddy in Space 2* (2019)
* *Security Breach: Fury's Rage* (2021)
* *Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach* (2021) (in collaboration with Steel Wool Studios)

### Other Games

* *Doofas*
* *Rage Quit*
* *Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.*
* *There is no Pause Button!*
* *Sit n' Survive*
* *The Desolate Room*
* *The Desolate Hope*
* *Fart Hotel*
* *Golden Galaxy*
* *Use Holy Water!*
* *Pogoduck*
* *Shell Shatter*
* *Forever Quester*
* *FighterMageBard*
* *Gemsa*
* *Kitty in the Crowd*
* *Spooky Scan*
* *20 Useless Apps*
* *Elemage*
* *Stellar Gun*
* *Gunball*
* *Ships of Chaos*
* *Legacy of Flan 1*
* *Legacy of Flan 2*
* *Legacy of Flan 3*
* *Flanville*

## **Books Written**

With the help of Kira Breed-Wrisley and other authors and illustrators, Scott has written a few novels and stories for the *Five Nights at Freddy's* series.

### Trilogy Series

* *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley)
	+ *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes Graphic Novel* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley and Claudia Schröder)
* *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley)
	+ *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Twisted Ones Graphic Novel* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley and Claudia Aguirre)
* *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley)
	+ *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet Graphic Novel* (in collaboration with Kira Breed-Wrisley and Diana Camero)

### Fazbear Frights' Series

* *Fazbear Frights: Into the Pit* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper)
* *Fazbear Frights: Fetch* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener and Carly Anne West)
* *Fazbear Frights: 1:35 AM* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Step Closer* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper, Kelly Parra, and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Bunny Call* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Blackbird* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: The Cliffs* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Gumdrop Angel* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: The Puppet Carver* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper)
* *Fazbear Frights: Friendly Face* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Prankster* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Felix the Shark* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper, Carly Anne West, Didi Esmeralda, Anthony Morris Jr., and Andi Santagata)
* *Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection 2* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener, Carly Anne West, Didi Esmeralda, Coryn MacPherson, and Anthony Morris Jr.)
* *Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection 3* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra, Andrea Waggener, Diana Camero, Didi Esmeralda, and Coryn MacPherson)
* *Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection 4*
* *Fazbear Frights: Graphic Novel Collection 5*

### Tales from the Pizzaplex's Series

* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Lally's Game* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Happs* (in collaboration with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Somniphobia* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Submechanophobia* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: The Bobbiedots Conclusion* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Nexie* (in collaboration with Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: Tiger Rock* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex: B7-2* (in collaboration with Andrea Waggener and Kelly Parra)
* *Tales from the Pizzaplex 9*

### Others

Scott has also written a few non-fictional books in collaboration with Scholastic. These includes:

* *Five Nights at Freddy's: The Freddy Files* (Original, Updated, and Ultimate Edition)
* *Five Nights at Freddy's: Survival Logbook*
* *The Security Breach Files*
	+ *The Security Breach Files: Updated Edition*

## **Appearance In Games**

### *FNaF VR: Help Wanted*

A picture of Scott that represent Steve Snodgrass appears in the introductory portion of *Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted*, representing the "rogue indie developer" who supposedly released games that tarnished Fazbear Entertainment, but according to Tape Girl, Fazbear Entertainment had hired Steve all along as part of a coverup.

Scott confirmed on Reddit that while his photo is used for the indie developer, he is not intended to be Scott. He also confirmed in the same post that the child face of Cassidy seen in Ultimate Custom Night is a modified picture of his youngest son Jason, and that it doesn't mean that Jason is said child.

### *Freddy In Space 2*

There are a few characters in *Freddy in Space 2* that represents Scott Cawthon, these being L.O.L.Z.H.A.X, Animdude: The Revenge, and S. Cotton. L.O.L.Z.H.A.X's name is a reference to Scott's old account that he used to post troll games, "lolz\_hax".

Animdude: The Revenge is based on Scott's avatar, and his name is based on Scott's username on several social medias. S. Cotton is based on his appearance in *Help Wanted*, and his name is based on Scott's favorite misspelling of his name, Sock Cotton.

## **Trivia**

* Most of his information was revealed on his bio on the Hope Animation's website.
* The first game that he worked with someone other than Leon Riskin was *FNaF World*.
	+ The second was *Sister Location*, the third was *Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator*, and so on.
* Scott is the voice actor for both Phone Guy and Phone Dude.
* In his interview with Dawko, unlike others who he interviewed, Scott referred to Dawko by his real name, Lewis Dawkins.
* A picture of Scott appears in the introductory portion of *Help Wanted*, representing the "rogue indie developer" who supposedly released games that tarnished Fazbear Entertainment, but according to Tape Girl, Fazbear Entertainment had hired the developer all along as part of a coverup.
	+ Scott confirmed on Reddit that while his photo is used for the indie developer, he is not intended to *be* Scott. He also confirmed in the same post that Cassidy's face seen in *Ultimate Custom Night*, implied to be "The One You Should Not Have Killed", is a modified picture of his youngest son Jason, and that it doesn't mean that Jason is said child.
* Due to Scott's cameo in the Intro Sequence of *Help Wanted*, many believed that he was part of the lore. He eventually explained that he is not a part of the lore.
	+ This had also applied to Markiplier, as he was featured in the trailer for *Special Delivery* as many thought that Markiplier is part of the lore.
* On June 12, 2021, his name trended on Twitter when his political donations were identified in public databases and discussed on Twitter. Cawthon subsequently confirmed in a Reddit post that he is a member of the Republican Party, has donated thousands of dollars in support of conservative political candidates (although he also made a one-off donation to then-Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 presidential primary campaign), and is pro-life, sparking both major backlash and messages of support from *Five Nights at Freddy's* fans. He stated that his personal information and address had been doxxed. He maintains that he loves all of his fans regardless of orientation, religion, gender, or race, and that his donations to any political candidates are not out of prejudice.
* On June 17, 2021, Scott Cawthon officially announced on his website that he was retiring from making games in the franchise to focus on raising his children. The series' IP will be given to an undisclosed third party. While it's unconfirmed who the IP will be given to, it has been assumed to be Steel Wool Studios by some, due to their work on the series.
	+ However, despite retiring, Scott is still working on the franchise, behind the scenes, but not as majorly as he used to.

## **External Links**

* Scott's website
* Scott's Reddit account
* Scott's Steam account
* Scott's IndieDB account
* Scott's Game Jolt account
* Scott's Youtube account

## References

1. ↑ Scott Cawthon explaining that he is not a part of the lore
2. ↑  https://www.reddit.com/r/fivenightsatfreddys/comments/nybyo1/my\_response\_and\_maybe\_last\_post