FNAF DLC will ruin DBD!
Disclaimer: I have nothing against the FNAF franchise itself.
Introduction
I am concerned that this DLC crossover could lead to younger players accessing content that is not appropriate for their age group and ruining the game for the existing players in this community. I know there is a lot of text here but please hear me out!
Intended Audiences
As a primary school teacher, I have observed that many of my younger, more immature students are avid fans of FNAF. This game, while undeniably popular and influential, tends to attract a younger audience. From my experience, it's rare to meet an adult who plays FNAF; it is predominantly a game enjoyed by children. One of my year 6 students addressed this concern to me stating, "That's stupid it's an R18 game and they're literally asking us to play it by adding FNAF!" That's the voice of an 11 year old child.
Dead by Daylight is rated R18 and is designed for an adult audience. Its themes and gameplay are more suited to mature players who can handle its intense horror elements and mechanics. Incorporating FNAF DLC could potentially blur this distinction and bring in a younger audience that isn't ideally suited for the mature content and interactions within the DBD community.
Game Ratings
As someone who has prev. worked at EB Games, I understand that parents are ultimately responsible for guiding their children's gaming choices and setting boundaries. However, in reality, many parents do not always enforce these rules or are unaware of the content their children are accessing. Additionally, children often have easy ways to bypass age restrictions and deceive online platforms about their true age. This makes it all too simple for younger players to access games that are not suitable for them, despite age ratings and parental advisories.
Interactions in the Community
Introducing the FNAF DLC into Dead by Daylight could also exacerbate issues related to player interaction and toxicity within the game. In games like League of Legends and Overwatch, where younger players often clash with adults, we've seen an increase in toxic behaviour, with players engaging in harmful and abusive communication. This could lead to more instances of immature behaviour, such as frequent trolling, aggressive interactions, and general toxicity. Children, often emboldened behind their screens, may engage in disruptive and negative conduct, which could further strain the already fraught community dynamics. Those who are primarily DBD streamers let me ask you, do you want little child keyboard warriors popping into your chat?
Conclusion
Again, I want to emphasize that my concern is not with FNAF itself, but rather with the demographic it might bring to a game that is intended for adults.
Why I am posting: I would like to know the player's thoughts around this! 👻
Comments
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People younger than 18 already play this game. What difference does it make? If you're worried about post game chat, just turn it off.
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Sorry but in the adult audience are fnaf Fans, yes the Franchise Play more Kids but this Kids grow Up and Like to See it in Games they can Play as adult. As children, we all tried things that we weren't allowed to. As a teacher you should know that behavior as a young person is natural and healthy.Just like drinking alcohol and taking drugs, you as teachers and adults have an obligation to point out the danger. the rest is up to the children and parents. As teachers, you are not allowed to intervene any further. that would be wrong towards the children and parents.
Edit: If they See or hear something Like: Boys i played the adult Game. This musst bei Not true the Most Kids lie about this to Challenge the Rest. But If say more Kids they Play it, speak with the parents of all the Kids this is the right way.
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I said pretty much the same. My 9 and 7 year olds have been massive FNAF fans for years. The toys and books and various merch are targeted towards kids (under 10/12) - i know first hand because my kids want it all. I understand why BHVR wanted to do this collab, but I just hope they understand that the playerbase's demographic may drastically change. Kids also don't have the income that adults have to buy cosmetics (arguably a big income source for the game) and they risk alienating older players who can afford them . And if they get as big an influx of new players as I suspect they will, specifically because of FNAF, I can guarantee most survivor games will be against Springtrap. The lack of variety may also drive players away.
To add, I'm not saying there aren't adult fans because of course there are. I'm saying though that FNAF has marketed itself to kids repeatedly over the years, so people cannot deny that this collab will attract the attention of kids too.
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I agree with everything you say, I put FNAF in the same camp as Goosebumps, and I like the original FNAF, and I like Goosebumps... but they aren't series for a mature horror audience, and the rest of the content in this game is not suitable for the FNAF audience.
The quote from the 11 year old is poignantly hilarious xD
As someone who used to work in GAME in UK, parents are dreadful at enforcing age restrictions, and that is a legitimate concern. When Grand Theft Auto 4 was released, I gave the same warning every single time:
"So GTA4 is an 18 rated game, it contains numerous references to gang related violence, drugs, murder and prostitution, and regularly has the player engage with each of these acts, are you sure you want to buy this game?"
You would not believe the number of parents that respond with "oh they've heard it all before on the playground"... that response always dumbfounded me... in the entire time we sold it, only 3 parents decided not to buy the game for their 10 year old child...
I'm not a fan myself of FNAF series as a whole... and while this is entirely my opinion and not anything objective, and I don't want to try and gatekeep by saying something FNAF isn't scary for a mature audience (especailly as horror is subjective), it's a strange entry for DBD.
I know people point at Clown elephant and Legion rabbit cosmetics, but to respond to those, while I don't like those cosmetics myself, in both cases its playing on the trope of a disarming killer, same kind thing as Pennywise is disarming until his trap his sprung.
Its also true there is a lot of goofiness in the major horror series/icons as well... its a fact that pretty much every major horror series has incredible jank and goofiness in it... but usually the original film and immediate sequel does not. Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Ft13th, Child's Play, Hellraiser, SAW (after 6), Alien, Predator, etc. It's not uncommon at all to say a horror series degrades over its run, and FNAF is the same... but the starting points respectively of each of those IPs is not the same ball game as FNAF...
There are numerous FNAF fans here, and I will extend the olive branch that I like the original FNAF... but the additions in later series that creates this idea of robots with innocent children's souls as your antagonists, that are sometimes friendly, sometimes not, and may or may not hurt you depending on who you are and how much you piss them off... doesn't hold quite the same feeling as someone like Myers who wants to and will relentlessly try to kill you just watch the light fade from your eyes.
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Agree with most, but on the last point I feel that's why they'd do springtrap. Scott said he doesn't feel like making the children possessing the animatronics killers for no reason is something he wants to see happen. Afton on the other hand. Murdered what 6 children? Tried to kill his own son. Tried to kill a security guard who burned down the place with both of them in it. Got found and put under the pizza plex. Somehow came back to life and was able to posses freddy and the other animatronics to attempt to kill Cassie. I mean he was dragged to hell for a reason lol.
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This exact argument has been said multiple times for years any time the possibility of FNAF in DBD came up. Now that it's happening I think BHVR does want to bring more kids in. Kids have more free time to play games and tend to spend a ton of money on video games (birthday gifts, grandparent wanting to make kid happy, stealing mom/dad's credit card, etc). They spend so much on video games that the US government has been working on legislation to regulate microtransactions to protect minors.
I will say it's a good thing there is no in game voice chat in DBD so atleast no toxicity there. Might be time to retire the end game chatbox before the influx of kiddies.
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Spot On, Springtrap is the obvious antagonist and does fit the bill better... I suppose my issue with him is he isn't the major focus of the "scares" in FNAF for most of the games.
In each other characters case, they are the front runner for all engagements as the antagonist... Springtrap mostly exists as an idea in the background until the finale.
Again, this is just my opinion... but it's also like yes, child killer bad... but the context is he's basically gone mad through guilt at killing his 2 children with his animatronics, and now kills children to try and understand the soul trapping aspect of his robots, up to the point the children in the bots revolt and get him.killed in the Spring Bonnie suit... there's a disconnected psychopathy there... but I don't get much murderous intent.
- Freddy is a sexual predator and a sadist who enjoys tormenting and torturing you before he kills you for his own gratification.
- Jason is an incredibly strong, yet childlike deformed monster of a man, who brutally murders anyone who comes across his path as a result of unwaveringly following the visions of his vengeful mother.
- Chucky is a vile serial killer and predator trapped in the body of a doll, who now uses his near immortality to prey on new victims.
- Cenobite is man who has lost his mind, and become an agent of hell, intent on gathering as many victims to experience the very limits of excruciating anguish and ecstasy as possible.
- Leatherface is a hulking cannibal who views people outside his family as nothing more than meat to be slaughtered with no regard for the pain he inflicts in the process.
William Astley is a man who has gone mad, and kills children to understand how souls are trapped in his animatronics to try and find a way to save the soul his son Evan and his daughter Elizabeth... before eventually his Spring Bonny suit kills him too when the ghosts of the children he has murdered corner him. After being buried for 30 years with his own corpse in the Spring Bonnie outfit, he now tries to kill anyone he encounters (as far as I can tell).
It's not bad I guess now I've written it out, I suppose my issue is the way its presented in game, the children are also against him, and actively befriend you at certain points through the games (I'm sure one of the games has Freddy Fazbear literally as your running buddy the whole time).
So I suppose that left a bitter taste in my mouth as a horror game, cause the games actively defuse a lot of the horror it could have had... which makes sense for a more child focused audience.
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The DBD Community is already full of whiny children, adding FNAF will change literally nothing
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1. DBD community is already full of children.
2. From what I can tell it seems like all the FNAF games are rated T so nobody is following the ratings system anyway so who cares.
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Nothing wrong with exposing kids to horror classics. I absolutely loved Alien, The Thing and Evil Dead long before I was supposed to be able to see them
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All okay but leatherface psycholgic a Kid he has fear that he or His Familie got hurt from the stranger
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Sounds right... actually I've been meaning to watch TCM again for ages, it's been like 10 years so I can't remember it too well.
I only remember my conclusions, but not the reasoning for why it was such a good horror film 😅
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We already have too many kids playing dbd, I don’t think there is a single person that respects the age restriction on games and films.
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To be honest I don't really see a reason why bhvr should care about that, bhvr is just the developer in the end and can't decide who does play dbd and who doesn't. Of course they can try to verify the age of the players better but in the end people always find a way to go around that.
Kids will always play games that they aren't allowed to and it doesn't really matter as long as they know the difference between the real world and games. I also played cs:go as a kid although just deathmatch because I was afraid to make other people lose because of me (in overwatch it was different, I was pretty confident there, don't know why it was only in cs:go). It didn't really matter at the end that it wasn't meant for my age, it was fun and I was nice to everyone as well as other people to me. It's just a question how mature the kid is at the end.
Well I'm adult now and it didn't really change much, the only thing that changed is that I understand the games better xD
I hope you understand my point, I'm german so my english is certainly not perfect.
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What? You mean I don't already play against nine year olds on a regular basis? ;) I hate to tell you buddy but that ship sailed a long time ago. On a daily basis you play against people barely out of the sandbox, and some so old that they are about to be buried in one. The new Franchise will be just like EVERY franchise that comes to this game. It will breath some new energy in for a quarter while people get new content. People who love the franchise will get their personal hobby horse to ride. The others will just go along, neither here nor there.
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DBD is full of "questionable players" who engage is all sorts of messed up behavior in game and in chat. So let these in. Let the two sides collide against each other. The rest of us will just disable the chat fully and play to win. Also play for fun with those who are nice.
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Only thing that FNAF will ruin are these forums… I am tired boss.
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The issue of responsibility lies a lot with the parents. Companies cannot police them, and can only do a certain amount of things to prevent this.
Meanwhile, consoles and Steam have parental controls in place, as you mentioned. The fact some parents irresponsibly allow their children access does not mean the companies have to be responsible for them.
Basically, yes there may be some issues. However, the parents or custodians of these children are the ones mostly responsible. It's they who should be doing the research.
My wife used to be a school teacher, and some of the ignorance of some parents was outstanding: not feeding breakfast, not because they didn't have the money, but "Why should we! The school is responsible". Parents need to do better.
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If anything, FNAF fans will improve things because the FNAF fandom isn't obsessed with its own misery.
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I don't think the age rating means much for DBD since it doesn't really do much in the way of R18 stuff.
There is almost no nudity outside of the in-game files, the lore is dark but you don't really see it gameplay wise; similar to FNAF, the blood and gore is very minimal outside of some Moris which while some are graphic; no one even uses them.
For an R18 game DBD is very very tame. Even the hooking isn't gore-y or anything. It's just a scream and no blood, same when you get hit.
I'm not really a fan of FNAF but the age thing I don't think is an issue at all.
As you put it, how the communities are going to interact is the more pressing concern in my mind.
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- FNAF seems like a kiddy game on the surface, but once you really look into the lore of the series it's anything, but child friendly.
- He did had a 10yr interview about a week ago. Scott wants to keep the integrity of the series to what it is. It's a horror franchise. He doesn't want kids seeing his characters for the first time some where in some other game they clearly don't belong.
- DBD is a horror game and already full of toxic whiny kids so adding SpringTrap as a killer to the roster won't really change anything.
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Maybe it's just my own personal experience clouding my judgement, but ever since I started playing this game when I was 10, I have never had an issue finding fans of DBD throughout my late Elementary, Middle and Highschool. I've said it on other posts, but I've also seen at least three separate groups of literal toddlers playing 'Dead By Daylight' on the playground (I think it's just hide and seek).
To a certain extent, yes, I do think there'll be a fair amount of kids trying out the game when FNAF launches. I think however, that these kids will either only want to play Springtrap or Mike and completely bottleneck themselves out of most perks, or they'll simply get bored of a game with this level of grind and amount of knowledge to learn. I know MMR is a joke, but I also can't imagine I'll be matched up with these players very often, y'know?
As for the target audience of FNAF, I can't really deny that there are a lot of children in the fan base, I myself joined when I was 8, but there have been requests and attempts for years for a more dark and gritty take on FNAF content. FNAF+ was a cancelled official remake of the first game intended for mature audiences. The Joy of Creation is an officially funded fan game with a demo out and Animatronics that couldn't care less about looking T for Teen. Look at Analogue Horror for instance. FNAF, though not having an official analogue horror series, is probably one of the most popular examples of the genre and most of the content in those series are solidly mature. Yes, a lot of these are fan examples, but in a series where Fan games and Fan names can become official media after awhile, I feel like it'd be wrong not to mention, especially considering how many people I see interact with those types of content.
There are at this point a lot of Ips that juggle targeting releases for younger and mature audience, and a fair few of them are in DBD. I see a lot of people asking for Scooby Doo, but not a lot of people worried a bunch of kids will then storm the game if that makes sense.
If FNAF was solely a kid series with only that target audience in mind, then I would fully agree that this collab is out of place, but we probably wouldn't be having this collab at all and Fortnite would have a few more robots in it if that was the case, so I'm excited. We'll see what happens in a year or so ig, but I'm not expecting this release to be such a big deal gamewise.
Post edited by ArkInk on1 -
Who do you think plays this game now, man?
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Ruin? It will be one of the best licensed content we have ever had!
Well, at least that is what I hope. I've been a fan of the FNAF franchise since the first game was released.
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my toughts is that idgaf . If the chapter is cool ill play it and that's that.
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I mean the endgame chat is already pretty toxic as is. Dont know if a few kids would actually make it worse. And you always have the choice to limit ur Interaction with other players to just the gameplay if you really want to.
Also such a popular licence could bring a big change to the game in a good way
If a huge wave of people starts playing just for FNAF chapter it might force BHV to more actively fix some of the bigger issues like genrushing, camping, tunneling, bugs, swf...so that these people dont get instantly frustrated and quit dbd after a week and just buy the FNAF chapter.
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I don't think there will be a great issue with underage players. Or, perhaps more accurately, there won't be that much of an increase with underage players.
The rating system is ignored a lot of the time by parents to the point that, when playing Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was uncommon but not unusual to find six to eight year olds playing a game about cannibalism, etc (and TCM, while not incredibly graphic, is a lot more graphic than DbD).
For that matter there's also Dead by Roblox so quite a few young children are already aware of DbD.
Fortunately, there is no voice chat (which, incidentally, I suspect for being the reason it appears that DbD has less underage players than it probably does). At least without voice chat it'll be harder for creepy people to talk to children and it'll be harder for children to swear at and use ethnic and homophobic slurs against other players. Besides it's not like DbD has never had that much of an issue with adults nerd raging and telling other players to unalive themselves so I don't picture that level of toxicity being that much different.
Just, whatever you do BHVR, don't add voice chat.
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FNAF isn’t my cup of tea but there are already worse killers in the game and it will increase the player base significantly.
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Dbd is full of screaming manchildren; I fail to see how literal children would make it worse.
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This game is already full of children and toxic players. Not sure anyone will be able to tell the difference aside from maybe an increase in FNAF posts on the forums.
I know you ended your post with "I would like to know the player's thoughts around this" but I'm just kind of curious why. Are you looking for people to reassure you that it won't ruin DbD? The title of the thread reads like doomsday prophesizing.
Something to keep in mind through all of this: a lot of people brought in by outside licenses to try out DbD end up not liking DbD. I mean really not liking it. The gameplay mechanics are unique and not appreciated by many gamers. New players come in, try survivor, and don't like that they can't fight back. Or they try out killer and feel helpless against four opponents. Or they just don't like the community. DbD has horrible player retention.
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Like others on this thread have said, I don't think this is a legitimate concern. To me this seems like a thinly-veiled attempt to undermine the FNAF partnership without starting a thread that violates the forum rules.
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there are kids that play gta,cod, etc. and when i was a kid, id play older titles aswell, and if i were a kid and heard the news i could play as one of the fnaf characters, id be ecstatic.
not a big deal, you underestimate what kids see and play.
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Adult children already play this game. Have you seen how they treat each other in this game?
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Yeah, at this point I'm also starting to lean to not add voicechat into the game when the FNAF license drops into the game. Also, they should make the Endgame Chat inactive as default and you have go activate it in the settings yourself if you want it.
And if things start to go really messy anyways, then BHVR should begin to consider the possibility to start phone ID:ing player accounts like in Overwatch
But as many have said in this thread, there are already young kids playing this game. Younger than what the age rating of this game is. It's more of the parents responsibility to be aware of what their offsprings are playing. And we all have been watching and playing stuff we shouldn't have when were young ourselves (like watching R18 horror movies in the 80's and 90's, or playing games like Mortal Kombat) and I can say that 99.9999% of us grew up to be quite normal human beings despite seeing some graphic violence and nudity in our youth.
Kids do not need to see all that, but they will regardless. We've all been there. Everything that was forbidden from us, was exciting and our curiosity to know why things were forbidden from us, got the best of us. It's up to the parents to tell them what they should see and play, and explain things that are wrong and hurtful. But you can't also always protect them and keep them in the secret. It will also create huge social problems when they grow up if they haven't seen anything when they were growing up. It's a mixed bag
Post edited by Triplehoo on1 -
The income argument is actually quite wrong... It wasn't older gamers that was buying Vbuck cards when I use to work retail. It was children spending their allowance/birthday money, or parents that would buy it for their kids. Free games like Roblox and Fortnight with their huge young audiences aren't in a situation where they are just surviving off their adult playerbase alone.
The rest of this conversation is whatever, I have no strong opinions on any of it... but the cosmetics part is just horribly false. This is the best franchise BHVR can grab due to sheer cosmetic variety.
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It's a parent's job to monitor what games and things their kids watches. If they end up playing dbd and you don't think it's suitable, it's their parents fault. BHVR doesnt need to baby parents to do their job
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I understand what you are saying, but these kids are already exposed to it, and if their parents monitor their electronic stuff, and don't let them play these things, then they still won't.
I'm old, but I started watching Nightmare on elm street when I was 4 or 5. FNAF in DBD would be nothing for me at 10 years old. My children don't watch horror, and find FNAF scary. Depends on the child and the family. DBD isn't going to be the thing that breaks anything.
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Firstly, just a shoutout to you. Thanks for being a teacher! An honorable profession.
Most of the FNAF fans I've seen are in their 20's. Some early teens don't even know what FNAF is (it's dying off in popularity, but the recent movie really helped bring it back into the spotlight). You may not be aware, but one of the reasons FNAF got as popular as it was was due to a couple in their 30's (one of them even having a master's degree) covering FANF's lore quite extensively on youtube. This show (Game Theorists and GTLive) has mostly a young adult to adult audience. In fact, one of the two people even ended up in the FNAF movie as a side-character.
Just look up FNAF stream on youtube or twitch. Almost everyone is 18+ that I've seen. The most popular streamers involved in FNAF are also well beyond 20's…some nearing 40. Markiplier is 35. MatPat is 37. Dawko is 28. Fuhnaf is 24. Almost all the FNAF cosplays I see at conventions are people 30+.
So, I get what you're saying, but I feel you have misunderstood FNAF. Just because it looks "kiddy" doesn't mean for kids. It's one of those "ironic kid-looking games" that end up actually being super dark and is made for adults. There's other games in this genre as well, such as Petscop and Catasrophe Crow.
Early in the series, it was a lot more "innocent", but as the story and series progressed, it has gotten darker and darker gaining a much more mature fan base. Additionally, FNaF 4 is rated Mature (17+).
FNAF definitely isn't a "kids game".
I mean, look at the kind of community content that gets generated
DEFINITELY not a kids game, lol.
Post edited by RpTheHotrod on0
