Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Five Nights at Freddy's creator confirms claims he has financially backed Donald Trump

"If I get cancelled, then I get cancelled."

Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has said he "won't apologise for" funding US Republican candidates, including Donald Trump, but acknowledged that "with so many people from the LGBT community in the fanbase that I love", it was "not an option" to ignore fan backlash about his political beliefs.

While many of the candidates Cawthon backed are conservative and sit within America's right-leaning Republican party, Cawthon insists that "for those who took the time to look", they'd see that the candidates he supported "included men, women, white people, black people, republicans, and democrats".

Watch on YouTube

Directly addressing his community on Reddit, Cawthon also took the time to discuss why he supports Republicans despite their broadly anti-LGBTQIA+ stance, stating "even if there were candidates who had better things to say to the LGBT community directly, and bigger promises to make, I believed that their stances on other issues would have ended up doing much greater harm to those communities than good".

"To say that the last few days have been surreal would be an understatement. I've debated greatly how best to address this, including not addressing it at all, but with so many people from the LGBT community in the fanbase that I love, that's not an option," Cawthon explained over the weekend, stating he believes his detractors don't want an explanation as much as "endless apologies and submission". "People who are expecting those from me will get neither," he added.

"I'd like to think that the last seven years would have given me the benefit of the doubt in regards to how I try to treat people, but there I was, trending on twitter for being a homophobe, getting doxed, with people threatening to come to my house.

"All this because I exercised my right, and my duty, as an American citizen, to vote for and support the candidates who I felt could best run the country, for everyone, and that's something that I won't apologise for.

"I'm a republican. I'm a Christian. I'm pro-life. I believe in God. I also believe in equality, and in science, and in common sense," he concluded (thanks, PC Gamer). "Despite what some may say, all of those things can go together. That's not an apology or promise to change, it's the way it's always been.

"If I get cancelled, then I get cancelled. I don't do this for the money anymore; I do it because I enjoy it. If people think I'm doing more harm than good now, then maybe it's better that I get cancelled and retire. I would accept that. I've had a fulfilling career. Besides, most things that people can take from you are things that never had much value to begin with."