Security cameras

 SECURITY CAMERAS IN GAMES

FNaF: The 'father' of the Security Camera Game Mechanic

    One of the most notable games that involves a lot of security is the FNaF 1 game, but moreover, the entire franchise that Five Nights at Freddy's has created. It surprised me when the Security Breach trailer came out, because it was so different from the original games. Now, don't get me wrong, I do love the idea of the game and welcome the changes; however, it surprises me that after all of the games that were created to have security cameras as one of the main gameplay mechanics (reminder: even FNaF VR: Help Wanted had the game mechanic in it), the latest game seems to trash the mechanic completely.

    One of the reasons this intrigues me is because of the main question at hand: why trash a mechanic that was the turning point to FNaF's original success? You could argue the change of ownership, but that wasn't even in the picture at the time the game was being drawn up or even in development, heck, that was still fairly recently. This gameplay mechanic was one of the reasons that FNaF was so popular: a lot of games don't have this type of mechanic.

Fan Games Of FNaF: Security cameras

    One of the things that most FNaF fan games and spin offs have in common with their 'Mother Game' is the utility of the game mechanic of security cameras and their use of keeping track of the people around them/ the animatronics. Its seen very prominently throughout the niche of games that were made as fan versions of the game. they all had some sort of security camera mechanic that is one of the main principles of actually progressing through the game.

Sure, there are some that don't use the mechanic at all to give it a different feel, but most of the more mainstream fan games (FNaC is one example) do have the mechanics of the security cameras implemented in the game. To be quite honest, FNaC (in my opinion) is just a recopy of FNaF.

Among Us (2018): The difference of security camera 'mechanic' and 'utility'

Among Us is a game that came out in 2018, but really only popped off in 2020-21. Along with it came a game mechanic that we have seen before, but presented in a much different sense and idea of utility. instead of using it to keep track of your potential end, the game brought it to life in a more competitive sense, and use it in a way that helps them win, either by tracking your potential targets or to stop the impostor and win the game for your fellow crewmates.

They have different modes of implementation as well in each map, which gives every map a different feel depending on how the style of security camera is. 

In short:

In short, Security cameras have been around for quite a while in games, and they pose a major role in a lot of them. whether we like it or not, they play a part in the games and fandoms we love, and even pose an actual use in real life, no matter how bad the camera quality is.