He left years ago and started his own channel shoddycast thats basically just more the science videos. Honestly theyre pretty fun, i like em, but it has been like a year since he last posted
I was about to say Shoddycast was what got him noticed by GT. I was actually annoyed he had to become much more âfamily friendlyâ after joining. I really loved his âDear Blank, HI. AUSTIN HERE.â
It's not so much that it was FNAF, I actually somewhat enjoy FNAF and some related content, but nonstop "Who purple guy REALLY is!!!!!" "Who is golden Freddy???!?!" on my feed was very annoying. Like, I don't care that much, MatPat, please, I don't need 300 FNAF vids
Matpat's departure made me realize that I didn't fw game theory because of the theories or game summaries
they were always 50/50 of them being correct look at his persona 4 theory and his infamous sans is ness
But Mat himself is so fucking entertaining and clever that he is able to make anything sound convincing
It's not that the others are bad it's just Matpat was truly special
I remember when his "Link is dead in MM" theory came out and becoming popular enough to where a lot of folks believed its true, which pissed younger me off cause the theory only works if you ignore the games that takes place before and after MM.
Majora's Mask is just a weird game all around. It doesn't fit neatly into the timeline outside of coming off the tail end of Ocarina of Time, which it was released within a year of and copied the vast majority of its assets directly from, and there's a billion different ways to analyze it thematically. The aforementioned time crunch, itself reflected in the game's central conflict and gimmick, did not lend itself to an incredibly solid foundation to be integrated into the broader Zelda universe, which I'd imagine is why they went for the kingdom of Termina in the first place, with its isolated lore and deities where the Hylian counterpart has no influence, with its name alone both implying it as a temporary place and declaring its own finality.
Saying Link is dead in Majora's Mask is not an unfounded way to analyze it, and it wouldn't necessarily invalidate any successors, as it's established decently early that these are not all the same Link. Between the bearers of the Triforce, the only one that's the exact same entity across incarnations is Ganon, the other two are subject to some predestined descendant stuff. Ceave released a video a few years ago covering a variety of interpretations of the game's narrative themes, and I feel he does the "Link is dead" theory a great service by discussing it alongside other takes rather than pushing it in a vacuum.
As a huge MM fan, I thought the dead link theory was neat but never really bought it. The main reason why has to do with the transformation masks and a certain song. When link plays The Elegy of Emptiness, an immobile copy of link is summoned which is different depending on the form heâs in.
When link wears one of his transformation masks which contain a dead deku scrub, goron, and zora spirit respectively, the copy always has blank dead eyes as it is a copy of a dead soul (duh). However, when he leaves a copy of his normal human self, the eyes look normal and have pupils which is a pretty strong indicator that his soul is not, in fact, dead.
I know there's different Links but my take is that every game is a reinterpretation of a general LEGEND of Zelda during different eras and from different people. It explains and connects concepts, at least for me, like the maidens, the sages, the champions etc. Maybe the Legend even has its parts mixed up and they're confused after all this time, for example, in both Ocarina of Time and BOTW, Link only confronts Ganondorf long after he's been in the castle, years after being sealed away. Who's to say that the Legend isn't misremembered and the lives of two Links are stitched together in a single story?
In that case, when accounting for the fact that OOT and MM follow the same Link, and only one of those has any tethering whatsoever to the Hylian mythos, we can easy say it's one myth followed by the question of where he went.
What makes it a lil hazy is that OOT Link isn't the only Link to leave Hyrule because ALTTP is the same Link from Awakening. Tears of The Kingdom also kinda reinforces this legend headcanon for me because Zelda time travels and fulfills the legend with a different group of sages and hero. It could be that historians conflate Rauru and Link when they talk about the events. To really tie it together, we have to look at Zelda's role in both SS and TOTK. Both of them have to alter themselves in a massive way to make sure the future has hope and in a way, she starts the legend and keeps it going by being Hylia's reincarnation and going back in time to a point where the legend hadn't been made real yet to actually act out the imprisonment war.
As a huge Game Theory fan I gotta say I was a larper. I didnât play most of the games he talked about, because I was a child like most of his fans base. I couldnât afford them! Iâm sure there were a lot more in my shoes as well.
But in my case, it was mostly lack of interest. For example: The Assassin's Creed leap of faith video was good, but I just don't care about AC or triple A games in general lol.
I think outside of the FNAF stuff that grew the channel a lot, MatPat's goal was to teach concepts under the veil of a video game theory. It was less about if Sans was Ness and more about teaching you statistics in a fun way.
I'm not a game theory fan but I always saw the videos as entertainment to put in the background. I don't know why people like to take them as gospel. The nature of stories is that they are not set in stone and will evolve or be changed as needed to keep people entertained.
tbh they were never really about the game, in the same way mythbusters was never really about the myth. it provided an entertaining hook to a video about viruses, statistics or farming. granted that style of video somewhat faltered around the time he transitioned to talking mostly about lore, but thats also around when I stopped watching him.
When fnaf took off it hard pivoted to "lore" and pretty much completely dropped the science aspect. It's been more than ten years since GT was primarily science based theories
When I started watching it way, WAY back when it was things like how strong minecraft Steve is and if you could truly survive an arrow to the knee in medieval times. I was slightly too old to enjoy FNaF when it released so it completely dropped off the map for me.
Since then I only saw one food theorists video about the pink sauce drama and it was laughably bad. It claimed mayonnaise isn't shelf stable because it contains eggs, but has that man every been in the sauce aisle of a grocery store where mayo is never refrigerated?
God, he never actually stopped making fnaf videos. I stopped watching for years then I went back and I had to search for a video that wasn't about five nights at Freddie's.
I mean, its not an outrageous thing to want a channel who's entire shtick is making compelling fan theories, to actually make compelling fan theories.
Its not "taking them as gospel" to critique the quality of the content presented in the videoes.
I still remember his film theory about how the Knights of Ren is secretly the main cast from Rogue One... despite Rogue One and The Force Awakens taking place sixty years apart.
Agree, no hate to Matt and I liked his videos but it was pretty clear his theories were always made from a surface level knowledge of the games, almost any actual fan would easily disprove most of the theories.
I don't blame him either, at the end you can't have the same knowledge a years long fan can by just preparing a video for a few weeks, you're bound to miss some throwaway dialogue in some mobile spin off and stuff like that (although there were some examples like the Rogue One which are definitely egregious)
All in all the theories were probably wrong like 90% of the time and were mostly just fun "what If" thought experiments I'd say and not meant to be taken too seriously.
My favorite video of his was his kingdom hearts 3 video as a kingdom hearts fan because it absolutely makes no sense that larxene shows up in frozen and makes you go through a stupid fucking labyrinth. Square Enix def wanted sora to fight Elsa but Disney wouldn't let them
Oh yeah, this was definitely one of the better post FNAF videos he put out, idk if the theory holds water but it would've been way better than "Frozen:TLDR Sing-along"
he left out the abyss memory cutscene, while his theory was that we play as the pale king reincarnated. basically he just ignores that the two are seen in the same room
He also claimed "it's a DREAM segment so anything could happen" but if that's the case, are the other dream segments (e.g Dung Defender remembering the Great Knights) supposed to be unreliable aswell? Of course not, narratively it'd be annoying
Yeah actually the radiance isn't real because it's just a dream bro and the infection is actually just bug-ebola, no magic involved. How could we not have noticed??
His theory may have been entirely wrong but the video got me to play hollow knight, and i'm sure plenty of others played it for the same reason. So I at least will give him a pass on that one.
Or in his fnaf 4 theory "no hospital has a grandfather clock around but all hospital rooms are equipped with a generic digital clock that wakes you at 6am"
Pretty sure his Binding of Isaac video did basically the same thing, just ignoring a playable character instead. Though that one was shown in the footage, just never discussed.
For me it's the same reason I like moist critical. It was like listening to a friend rant about some random shit in a VC. Not in a parasocial, "Charlie and Matpat are my friends because I watch their videos." Kind of way, but just that vibe of gaming, or doing nothing as someone very, very passionately rants about something they like. It's the main reason I love putting them on in the background as I game, or paint Warhammer minis.
Same! I cannot watch something that needs me to pay attention while Iâm gaming, but sometimes I need something to break up the monotony if Iâm, say, farming for a drop, or building something, or if Iâm waiting for some kind of event. And videos from game theory or moist critical are good for that. A personal favorite of mine is Miniminuteman, because Milo does such a good job with talking and explaining things that I donât get âlostâ if Iâm not looking at the screen the entire time.
A few months ago I was finishing up Metaphor Re Fantazio and spent a bunch of hours farming EXP in the final dungeon, so I decided to watch videos explaining creepy pastas to keeo me entertained.
Really, grinding is best done as a background activity
The science theories were better than the lore ones imo. Like the time where he did the math and Ridleyâs side special in SSBU would just turn you into paste.
Same, that's also why I am still into food theory compared to the other channels. It was always more of the science of things and food challenges and whenever they talked about lore you knew you were in for some deranged ramblings, theorizer style
(Count Chocula being inbred still one of my all-timers)
Its science theories that got me into the show back when I didnt even speak english fluidly and didnt understand the science, they are always a joy to watch
I am a constant sans is ness defender because it was partially a joke, as mattpat has said. However he did put together the fact that sans is canonically from another world 3 years before deltarune. The fact he got that and threw a joke on top for clickbait is respectable enough to me
Yeah. Besides fnaf which he seemed to have a true knack for game theoryâs theories were always quite weak. His megaman videos got like two hours of debunks from a megaman creator
I think part of the appeal was jist Matpat being the entertainer he was. A lot of his theories take the piss outta the game their about, and I think that was partially by design for some. Less "Is this the true story?" And more "I'm gunna see how much of a piss I can take outta this game."
One always stood out to me for being incorrect was where he calculated out how powerful Steve from minecraft would be... He adjusted for the world's accelerated timescale when calculating how long Steve could hold his breath, but didn't adjust for timescale when calculating Steve's running speed.
You can't just selectively apply different units of measurement for dramatic effect!
I dislike how much people hate the sans is ness thing, I think the point of theorys should be finding a bunch of stuff that makes it sound plausable, not only that something is 100% true, otherwise its not really much of a theory
I like to point out that his Sans is Ness theory was genius
Man predicted the âSans is from Deltaruneâ theory years before Deltarune existed. He found actual evidence for Sans being from a different game and just had nothing to tie it back to
Some of his older videos would get pretty wild though. Like the watchdogs one where he started talking about surveillance, cyber security and Operation Buckshot Yankee.
Hoenstly, GT was going downhill even before matpat left, it just became harder to hide after he did since people didn't have the same level of attachment
Crap you may be right... Matpat really did have his massive golden age and kinda left the scene after it had concluded for a while and he was essentially running off the popularity gained from it more or less
And given how internet space like youtube are obviously always gonna be more focused on people rather than... What essentially is now a company I am pretty sure..? It makes sense that without him, things have deteriorated very quickly as there is no longer that love for the silly Ness is Sans theorist going around to make you look past the actual state of the channel.
I think it started going downhill writing wise for sure, when the channels shifted from entertaining ways to teach you complex scientific or general knowledge with some lore about video games here and there and just completely shifted to talking about arg's and the nth horror series with lore, I think his videos from before are a little bit more interesting to watch while post 2021 to 2022 are more so for entertainment
e with some lore about video games here and there and just completely shifted to talking about arg's and the nth horror series with lore,
If you watch Game Theory enough you also notice its always the same story. Always. Every game they talk the lore about is the same "secret corporate stuff that killed children to use their souls, creating monsters that killed everyone. OH and here is a secret lab large enough to contain half of the US"
I miss the times when there was more science. Or if they have to to lore videos, that they switch up things more.
It always irked me when he would show his "cringy" clips of his old videos with bad acting skills and ask why people say old game theory was better.
He missed the entire reason people say that, it wasn't because of the cheesy skits, it was because the videos were about using geometry or calculus or other science stuff to compare real world physics to silly video game mechanics and how absurd they would be in the real world.
The Fnaf 1 video truly was the beginning of the end, not just because he milked that series dry, but because all that video was was just him reading the hidden newspaper clippings verbatum.
I had actually stopped watching GT shortly after that first FnaF video. I had less than zero interest in that series and for some time, it's all he would talk about, and not even in an entertaining way
Bro the amount of FNAF content GT pumped out towards the end was truly something. I wasn't a big FNAF fan so I felt like i was missing out, but still ignored every single video lmao.
Theyâve said themselves recently that itâs because of the algorithm, and because they did it once YouTube just demands it again and again and again and again. Thatâs the whole reason they started theoryverse, so they can make stuff without being beholden to the YouTube algorithm.
Any time a YouTuber sells their channel and says âbut donât worry Iâm not going anywhereâ itâs because part of selling their channel involved a contract that they stay on board for 1 year to help the transition.
That last year went down hell because Matt was slowly checking out. He was an employee, not the owner.
yeah, but I think the new hosts are doing perfectly fine. I was just mentioning that when they started, there was a mine full of gold. We could get science based ideas in a nerdy environment (how tall is Mario, how fast is Sonic, huge theories that have been in the fandom to be dissected). I still like the channel, but it starts to feel like reaching for something for content.
Like at the start, you have this overflowing well of water (content), and you do it really well. As time goes on that overflowing well becomes half a well, then it's dry. Then now, just waiting for more water to replenish, so there is more content to put out.
I know nothing about wells, but what I mean is running into a wall of needing new content to be made to make your own content. This isn't them, but if your channel is all about ASOIAF (Game of Thrones) content, at first you would have a ton to write and talk about. But after all that is done...waiting for the next HOTD or AKOSK or TWOW to release so you have something new to say. The well has been a little depleted. "let's try to find the LORE behind the SIMs". They need material to be able to comment on, and that takes time for things to release....whereas in the beginning there were a thousand IPs they could theory-craft around.
I think itâs just material wearing thin. In the beginning thereâs a whole world of Mario, Zelda, SonicâŚevery classic game to explore. They kinda got lucky they were big when the indie horror scene came up, and then it became tons of FNAF, then poppy, etc. The quality is still there, but I think the well is running dry.
Some things arent meant to last forever and thats ok. The GT fanbase has also grown up, most of us are adults and dont have time the same intereses. The newer Generation, meanwhile have new interests.
the problem is Game Theoryâs theories havenât been good enough to stand on their own for YEARS before matpat left. Game Theory excelled in scientific theories and presentation. Media analysis has always been a weak point for them, and eventually lore theories became the main thing the channel did. Not saying all his lore videos are bad, but all his worst stuff is lore stuff. And thereâs so many channels now which do a better job with media analysis.
If the channels wanted to do well without mat, they desperately needed to bump up their theory quality. And they just sorta didnât do that.
This is it, the earlier theories worked so well because they were so unique I still remember watching the incredibles video he did in which he calculated how much force would be required to stop a train using f = m Ă a and it blew my mind when I was younger, The problem with the theory channels now is that they feel like the same type of channel as any other media analysis channel - pumping out theories which will be disproven immediately when the game comes out or making reaches, it kinda sucks that matpat gets likened to just the fnaf theories guy when his other videos were the things that made him stand out and be unique, since no one else was really telling you about the physics of portal or whatever
The channels were at their best when they used popular media as a vehicle to discuss scientific concepts. The Assassin's Creed Leap of Faith episode wasn't about how Assassin's Creed was unrealistic, it was trying to tell people about how gravity works. The Creeper episode wasn't lore speculation, it was teaching people about cool plants. Mario Is Mental wasn't about the dark secrets Nintendo is hiding from you, it was discussing the commonly understood symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
I like the FNAF lore stuff too, but the show went too hard in that direction. It becomes clear that for a lot of the theories they worked backwards from a conclusion. And that inadvertently did make me more aware of how the way information is presented can make people believe in falsehoods, but that's another matter.
By the end, it was Mat's character that was carrying the show. He was often wrong about stuff, but it was also clear that he was earnest about it.
Lockstin and gnoggin is kinda like this, he used to be a general gaming channel with mostly pokemon stuff to full time pokemon stuff and even as someone who doesnt really care for the new games, its still fun seeing a guy talk about pokemon and then use that as a jumping off point to talk about mythology or history or something like that.
Also sometimes their problem with media analysis is the fact that they also sometimes ignore the fact that the actual answers are given during the story. (Cough, cough, Persona 4 Theory, cough, cough)
I think that that's why I still watch food theory but not film/game - not only does the host have the same kind of manic "im not sure this is a good idea" energy that made matpat fun to listen to, he often does food history or science or business as well. It's more engaging of a topic for me.Â
I think a bit part of it is because of the huge time investment it takes to theorizie about a game's lore.
Even if you just read the wiki pages, they can always add more stuff and now that's part of the game lol.
For example, mossbag is the Hollow Knight lore guy and he made like four corrections/reworks to his theory videos as the updates came out (and he'll probably do the same thing for Silksong).
Game Theory's entire deal was jumping around to random games & making a video or two about them, but you can't do that for lore. That's why they only do lore videos about whatever the new fnafslop clone is lol.
The channel became im14andthisisdeep edgelord-lite try hard, when it capitalized on lore hallucination, specially nonsensical horror game "lore"; rather than using STEM tools to take a show's premise too serious, and nerd out. Like 6 years ago.
The only theoriest I was watching even before Mat retired was Food Theory and honestly out of all 4 channels I think Food is still easily the best
There isn't nearly as many lore deep dives cause.... it's food. Instead we get fun theories that echo classic Game Theory, using science to prove or disprove a commonly held question or opinion. There's also great real applicable advice that could help you save money in the future as well as give you good insight on the type of food we put into our bodies.
It also helps the new host Santi is incredibly entertaining in his own right and gives FT it's own spin. Integrating his experience with food and his culture into the channel goes a long way. It feels like he's doing his own thing rather than just Food Theory but the voice is different
I speculate if Style Theory is in a similar boat but I couldn't get into it even when Mat was hosting. I might one day it does seem interesting
For real, food theory is the channel that feels most reminiscent of the older style of game theory videos (not exactly rigorous science but a fun application regardless). Agreed on style theory too.
It feels the most like classic Game Theory, take an objectively silly question and apply way more logic than you should to see if it actually makes something
We all knew this was going to be like this matpat was truly built different and trying to fill that kind of shoe is like trying to fill the Grand canyon
Imo its not nearly as interesting now. I feel like what made the channel interesting was how it'd fairly often end up on an actual scientific topic, I just don't find picking apart lore entries nearly as entertaining as taking a random game mechanic & trying to find an actual biological explaination for how it could hypothetically be replicated in the real world.
I agree but this honestly was just as big of an issue during Mat's run of the show. The last two years of his run were almost completely lore focused with the only exception I can think of being the bob-omb episode.
It's been going downhill since they sold the channels to the corpos. Also, it doesn't help that the writers, in addition to clearly suffering and making many mistakes from crunch, are writing the scripts in the same persona for the new hosts as MattPatt, so they feel like they're just mimicking his affect
i mean some channel do benefit from private equity. like veritasium, its a science channel first, and that equity allows connection to highly prestigious scientist and access to location that otherwise they cant.
I remember seeing some points of contention about the subjects they choose. It appears there is sometimes an agenda in the choice of topic of the videos they make.
The theories and videos are still the same quality as they were before
But what really sold game theory, film theory and the other two channels was matpats showmanship. He was truly a born entertainer and knew how to get you invested in the story or science behind every theory
I like the new videos, but I just wish theyâd quit the lore summary/âexplaining the incredibly obvious storyline to youâ videos. Film Theory does that way too much with analog horror videos and Game Theory does that way too much with indie games. They arenât really fun and get real repetitive after a few videos.
I also miss the âwhat the fuck were they smoking when making thisâ kinda videos. You could say a lot of things about âSans is Nessâ, âDeadpool is Ernest Hemingwayâ, âall movie Jokers are the same guy and heâs also Robinâ and âhow big is Luigiâs dickâ videos, but they are entertaining and are so stupid that I canât help but smile. It also is fun watching someone, who knows that they are wrong and just saying crazy shit, try to convince that something is real. All my favorite videos have that âcrazy but kinda makes senseâ vibe and I wish they lean into it more.
IIRC they literally sold majority share to investment capital.
Which happened to a lot of channels in the last 5~ years.
MatPat was a huge part of why people showed up. I didn't have any viewing history of who these other people were. It was like they picked random people off the street, which is horrible given how connected to the channels they were.
On the opposite side of this LTT does a great job of spreading out recognition among the team. Years on years of having the crew around and talking to them in streams and events.
Gonna be honest it had been going downhill for a loooooong time before Matpat left. In fact it had been going downhill since he started talking about games that were trendy and not things he personally cared about.
Style and Food Theory also genuinly felt like such wierd adds.
Like yeah a few Theories there are cool: How to beat spicy food, best food of restaurant X.
But like... it has started to just go into conspiracy stuff it feels like.
And Style Theory is just: not for me. Never was.
They need to look at shit like what Alex bale made with Spongebob. Make theories that are batshit insanity. Or the Theorizer where one insane theory has crazy implications but instead of handwaving that away make it spiral into an interconnected web of mini theories for one GIGA theory.
I havenât watched in a while but I like food theory around when it came out because it was usually more focused on the types of theories I prefer, that being âthe theory is really just a framing device for a lesson of some sortâ. I did notice a lot of the videos turned into sorta âthe theory is a framing device for a challengeâ type theories though, which donât particularly vibe with me as much
It started going downhill before matpat left. There's also the fact that there's not much to work with and now there's not as much attachment to the hosts
Game theory was prob the first yt channel i considered myself a "fan" of, i grew up with it. But as time went on, i found myself less and less able to watxh the weekly videos, despite being able to watch older videos over and over again.
Around the time matpat left the channel i realized why, because by that point i barely watched any of videos except for fnaf, and even then... only sometimes.
Matpat is genuinely a passionate and creative person, and if he's able to channel that, the video, regardless of how good the theory it presents is, will be fun an entertaining (which is something i think people overlook when judging GT videos). Even his laughably wrong theories like sans is ness still have an inmistakable charm to them because of the genuine love matt has for them. But as time went on, he became more and more expected to cover whatever game was big this week, and obvious he and even his growing team can't get down and be passionate for 50 different games a year.
I think the worst game theory video is easily the hollow knight one, mostly because it's such a display of this problem, and to me, marks a downward shift of the channels quality.
This is also why i think the fnaf videos declined far slower than the channel, it was not only a topic matpat was passionate towards, but one in which he was uniquely knowledgeable, he knew his shit, and sure he got stuff wrong but that was also a big part of fnaf lore hunting. There was a good reason to watch the newest game theory on fnaf, not really for any other game.
Game theory used to be a channel that could go in depth on a topic, and if not, then usually the topic was used more as a jumping off point to explore some bit of science, history, or psychology. But i think they got a bit lost in the sauce of the algorithm, and created what is possibly the steadiest decline in a yt channels quality.
I've probably made this comment on like 3 different subs but Game Theory (idk about the other channels, I didn't watch them much) rapidly became The Lore Explainer Guys once indie horror hit the scene. I started watching the channel because they made me interested in math and science, and even if they weren't covering a game I cared about, I liked hearing Matpat talk about science. Now if a video isn't about a game you're interested in there's just no reason to watch it because all they talk about is lore and joke about "lmao child murder am i right?"
Pizza Tower was the last straw for me. I love Pizza Tower so much, and I thought the game was ripe for a physics theory. Then I got the notification of a Pizza Tower video by The Game Theorists and it felt like 16 minutes of getting punched in the face
I just dislike how every single fucking theory went from interesting subjects and analyses to "Is Bumblo's Big Grunglo secretly evil and how can you escape it?" and the thumbnail is just a blue pink guy that looks like a toy and the words "WE ARE DOOMED" in all caps and then you find out it's just an horror game with the most on the nose CPTSD rapresentation ever or some shit like that.
I only really used to watch gtlive, I like Ash but the games they play now are all aimed towards kids. I'm personally not interested in watching unless it's fnaf atp
game theory was never great (almost every theory they came up with was wildly inaccurate in some way at best) but matpat was so endearing as a personality people usually looked the other way.
it's always hard to replace the decade-long face of anything, but when that thing just didnt have a solid foundation... yeah
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