Game Theory - Goodbye Internet

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he announces his stepping down as host of the Theory channels on March 9th. *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Tyler Mascola, Alex "Sedge" Sedgwick and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

It's not clickbait. On March 9th, I'll be hosting my last theory episode, at which point I'll be handing off the channels to someone else. That's it. Send tweet. We're all done here. That's all you need to know, right? Oh, wow.

Forgive me, by the way, if I'm a little bit more disorganized than usual, normally I would want to script out something like this pretty precisely. But with an announcement like this, I wanted to bring it back to just us. There's no one else in the room. There's no teleprompters. There's no nothing. It's just the way that this whole thing started. It's a conversation between us.

And sorry that I keep getting emotional about this. I'll try not to, but it's a big deal. You know, like, if you think about it, this channel is Steph and my first child, really, before we had Ali, before we had Skip, Catbat. Like, it was this. This was our baby. This channel has been going for 13 years. I think in total it's somewhere around like 1,200 theories.

And only half of those are FNAF. Shocking. I know, we actually did stuff that wasn't FNAF related. But this has been a literal third of my life. And I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss this. I value what we have here. I value this conversation, this openness,

this relationship that we share. and I'm sad that I won't be able to see you every week. Which then I guess prompts the question of like, why? Why am I doing this now? Why am I making this announcement today? Why am I walking away from the channels? Well, to be honest, it was Tom Scott. You can blame Tom Scott.

Tom just did his farewell video and I'm like, oh, well, he was able to do it. I want to be able to fly away in a helicopter. Obviously, that's not it. But really my reasons for making this announcement today is probably largely the same as Tom's Reasons or Seth Evermans or Captain Sparkles or Papa Meets or Stampy Longheads. Like there's a lot of these videos that are coming out these days and there's going to be a lot more happening throughout this year. Steph and I have known this video would be coming for the last three years.

We weren't sure it was necessarily going to be today. We didn't know exactly when it would fall, but we knew it was going to happen eventually. That's why over the last couple of years we've been, staffing up so much. That's why we partnered with a larger company to help run the channels. That's why we've been spending so much time outside of this box training up the team to make the best videos that they can. Because we knew that we couldn't do this forever. We knew that honestly we didn't want to do this forever. For as much as I love you and I love overthinking things and I love theorizing,

I don't love late nights. I don't love the fact that Steph and I have been work first. for over a decade where I'm sitting down at dinner with my best friend and we're talking about business logistics or we're talking about

animatronic toes. I miss the days where I could just sit down on the couch with her and play video games and it's not for content or I'm playing a game and I'm not thinking

about what theories are going to come out of that. I miss it. So that's a big reason. That was a big one right there. But also just the internet's changing. My life.

has changed in the last 13 years. I mentioned Dolly before. He's the coolest little dude and he's getting older by the minute and I watch him and he has so much fun and he is so much smarter than I was when I was his age. He also probably knows the Fnaff lore better than I do, which is a problem that I should probably address at some point, but honestly I want to be able to spend more time with him. Another sad fact of the matter is I'm getting older. I'm 37 now. The other day I actually had to Google my own age and you know that when you have to start like doing math in your head to calculate how old you are, you are over the hill, my friends. Though to be fair, to my credit, I think I'm like the only 37 year old out there

who has an unironic appreciation of skibbitty toilet. Then again, maybe that's the problem, right? Maybe that's not a good thing. And honestly, because this is all about us being honest, There is a bit of a selfish side to this. When you think about it, there's only really two ways to step away from a YouTube channel. You either just decide the day that you stop uploading and you're like, I'm done. Or you just keep uploading videos from now until the heat death of the universe and you watch as your relevance slowly dies or your passion slowly dies. And for me and my journey in this place, I always wanted to go out on a high note. And when you stop and look at the last year, this has been the best year,

in the theorist lifespan ever. Like, no joke. It is our highest view year. It is the year where we launched style theory and immediately put our foothold in a brand new space and that took off and now we're one of the top style and fashion channels on YouTube. And that kind of completes the trifecta of,

hey, we now have a top channel in four different verticals that are completely different. And no other YouTuber really has ever been able to do it to that scale. That's amazing. This is also the year where I was able to meet you guys at our Broadway show. I was able to play at the PGA and show that, hey, YouTubers aren't particularly good at golf, but they can make your event relevant for like

a couple of minutes. It was also the year that I got to host the Streamy Awards, and it wasn't cringe. I mean, to be fair, the Streamy Awards were always a little bit cringe, but it was the right amount of cringe. When I pull up videos of all my favorite creators and I watch them, and all of a sudden I start hearing people just casually dropping, that's just a theory. It's just a theory, a game theory. Now, this is just a theory, people. At the end of the day, it's just a game theory.

That's just a theory. A free birds theory. Also a lot of lore, so if you're a big theory head, proceed at your own risk. I did not know about this theory. That's a theory. That right there, that is incredible. And that's the note that I want to leave on. And that's how you just know it's the right time.

All of those reasons coming together saying, hey, this is the moment. And that's hard to say, because change is scary. Change is hard. But sometimes the right decision isn't the easy decision. The easy decision would just be to carry on doing this and do FNAF Part 332. But that wouldn't be the right decision. I think the best way to explain it is with a video game analogy. Feels appropriate, right?

Whoa! It's game theory. Ha! Did it. Check the game part of it off. But the way I like to think about it is earthbound. I think I've made it pretty clear over the years that is, without question, my favorite game of all time. Sands is Ness, all that, you're all familiar with that.

But what you might not be familiar with at this point is how the game ends. At the end of Earthbound, after you save the world, everything opens up to you. You can revisit every single location that you've been to. You can talk to every NPC that you met on your journey. And it's this incredible moment as a gamer. You see just how many lives have been impacted thanks to your journey. And then after spending as much time as you want, talking to all. those people, you end up back home.

You go back to where it all began, where you were just a kid waking up in bed and starting your adventure. And even though your mom's there and your dog's there and your weird telephone dad's there, it feels different somehow. Like, sure, this is still a place of love and acceptance and comfort and security, but you just don't quite fit anymore. Because you just traveled the world. You made all these new friends.

You are different. You grew up. And your relationship to this place. grows up. It evolves. In case you couldn't tell, I'm Ness, which I guess would also mean that I'm also Sands. But I was also Ness in the FNAF movie, which just opens up all sorts of weird canon. Slapp a thumbnail on that one. So anyway, there you have it. That is why I'm leaving.

I hope you can understand. But that obviously begs the question of like, what happens to the channels? Well, for the next 10 weeks, we're going to have ourselves a big old going away party. If Eunice Anas taught us anything, it taught us that you probably shouldn't use, urine for a personal sauna. But if Eunice Anas taught us two things, one was to not soak in your own urine, but two was to appreciate the time that you have left. So that's why over the next 10 weeks, we're going to have a bunch of theories that are going to be a lot of fun, revisiting old favorites, getting some closure on things, we're going to see some familiar faces, a lot of awesome

stuff. Although to be fair, I think it's nine weeks, and I think we counted this one as week one. That was stupid of us. That, my friends, is how you wind up getting Wario being 10 feet tall. rigor should have double-checked the numbers. So I have nine theories left on each of the channels, but we're going to call them Matt Pat's final 10 because that just sounds better. At which point then on March 9th, we're going to have that big going away celebration, Matt Pat's final theory, and I just dust away. I stand astride my music man and I just whip and nay-nay off into the distance. But then something special happens. Do the channels go away with me? No, actually. I've always thought that anyone can be a theorist, right? If you are passionate about a time,

topic and you love to overthink it and over research it, then congratulations. You're a theorist. And that could range from, hey, I have family recipes that I'm constantly looking to refine to, hey, I want to create the perfect fantasy sports team. Because here's the thing, sports pros, at the end of the day, if you are in the statistics and numbers and doing calculations to see if your team won or lost, you're just playing a glorified Dungeons and Dragons game. Need to break it to you.

You're one of us, my friends. And sure, game theory is a format that I created. It's a show with this very excitable host who makes a lot of cringy dad jokes and says the word lore a lot. But at the end of the day, it's more than just the host. It is a show. It is a format. And at a broader sense, it is a state of mind. It's a way of thinking and approaching the world around you.

It's more than just the host. And when you think about it, not a lot of YouTube channels function that way. We're special in that regard. Like, you're not going to be able to get another market supplier stepping into the market supplier channel. And you're never going to be able to recreate Jenna Marble. And to be honest, you're never going to get another map pat either. But you can't have another game theorist. You can have another film theorist or food theorist or style theorist.

I think in a lot of ways, we almost function kind of like the Doctor Who of YouTube, where as one host fades away, a new one kind of respawns in their place, and they're able to put their own unique spin and flavor on the format and make it their unique thing. You have eras of the different theorist channels. And so, you know, my era's fading away, and someone new is kind of. coming in. Maybe this is the David Tennant to Matt Smith transition, right? That was a good, solid series of episodes right there. So who then is going to be taking over the channels?

Well, I don't know if you've noticed this, but fewer and fewer of the words that I'm saying in any given episode are actually mine. If you go down to the credits, you can actually see in the description that there are certain names that am appearing more and more frequently. Like, yeah, I'm listed on every single one as the writer because I touch every single script, I polish it in my voice. But in all, honestly, the bulk of what I'm saying is coming from someone else. their research, it's their work. Why should they have to filter their creativity through my voice? I've always envisioned these channels as a place where we could spotlight all sorts of creators. I mean, it even goes back to the original URL of this channel, right? It isn't game theory. It was always the game theorists, because this was a place where you could find a lot of like-minded

creators, all with a passion for gaming and education. That's why we had the partner shows like Guy Jing Gumba with Culture Shock, or Drake with Smash History, or Ryder with a Brief History, or Austin with the science and Lee with the breakdown. They were all here because we all had a similar goal to educate people through the lens of gaming. And then YouTube pivoted and then made it so that way doing a channel in that style doesn't really work anymore.

But we still try to keep that ethos alive by making sure that we're regularly covering small indie projects. Stuff like Onlycans. Like Mandela catalog. Like, oh whoa. OWO? See? I learned. But if we're doing that for all these other creators,

why aren't we doing it for the creators on our own staff who have been in the trenches doing the research, writing these words to deliver to you over the last couple years. I have been fortunate. I have been so blessed to have this platform available to me that you've given me over the last 13 years. But I think now it's time to pass it on to the next generation. It's time to give someone else a shot. But I realize that I'm getting off track here. So back to the question, who's taken over? First off, it's not going to one person, but rather four. I would not wish my schedule on anyone. Like, sure, I'm willing to not sleep for the last 13 years of my life, but I feel like as old man YouTube passing this along to the next generation, I should probably do my best to try and make it more sustainable for them. It's also going to people that you're already familiar with.

You've seen them showing up in shorts. You've seen them here on the couch with me for GT Live. You've sometimes seen them washing their hair with me in my own shower. Don't read too much into that, but it is accurate. Most importantly, though, they're each an expert in their own individual subject matter, and they've been spearheading the creative of the channels for the better part of the last year. And I think what's maybe the most fascinating about all of this is that each of the four of them come to us from a completely different angle. You know, so for instance, you have Lee, right? Lee's going to be taking over film theory. And Lee has been with us for 10 years.

10 years. It's crazy! I believe he was actually editor number three for the channels. We had Ronnie, and then we had Ryder Foot of a Ferret, and then we had Lee. I think his first theory that he ever worked on was Rosalina's Peach's Daughter, Peach is Dead. of my all-time favorite episodes that we've ever done on the channel. And over time, he rose up. He had his own show on the channel here. He had Breakdown, which were these just beautiful documentaries that were edited in such an incredible way. And since then, he's been spearheading

a lot of the creative on both the writing and the visual side. And then, of course, you have Amy over on Style Theory. And Amy is actually a very different case here. When she first approached us, I think it was six years ago, she didn't know about the channels. All she knew was that she wanted to learn everything that she could about digital video and that theorist was kind of the place that you went to to learn that stuff. Like we were the best when it comes to analytics and optimization and programming and things like that. She got in and she just devoured everything that we threw at her. So much so that she eventually got to the point where she was so good that she was consulting the largest mobile game company in the world based off the stuff that we

were working on here in studio. Incredible. And all of that while being responsible for packaging somewhere around like 500 episodes across all the channels. And then she helped me and Steph Brainstorm Style Theory for two years before the channel eventually launched, hoping that maybe one day she would be able to rise into the hosting rule for it. And now here it is. And then of course you have Santi and Tom, uh, Santee over on food theory and Tom over here on game theory.

And interestingly enough, they both grew up watching game theory. We were their childhood show, which to be fair, it just shows how old we are. Santee would eventually go work at Mythical with Retton Link before coming here, where he is bravely spearheading food theory and letting me mercilessly make fun of all his recipes. He's much better than I give him credit for. I just like giving him a hard time. And then Tom, he worked at Disney and Fox, but he knew all along that he wanted to be here, right? Like this was his aspirational goal.

He wanted to write here. He emailed us a cold email outreach. We just miraculously saw it, decided to audition him, and he crushed it. His first episode that he worked on was actually watching every single installment of the Pokemon on anime to calculate Pikachu's level. And to be fair, that was his pitch. Like, I have asked people to do some crazy things in the past, but not even I'm

that brutal. Like, you can only watch Team Rocket blast off so many times, but he's like, this is an episode I'm passionate about, I think I'm going to knock it out of the ballpark, and I'm going to show you how committed I am. And he has been so committed ever since. So committed, in fact, that I told him, hey, if you're joining the channels, you do realize that you're going

to have to read every single FNAF book, and he's like, boom, he did it. And we're up here going crazy in the Fnaf attic. But But not only did he read every FNAF novel, he also read every single Hello Neighbor book. Yeah, he went that far. Currently, he's working his way through Bendy because the new movie's coming up. If nothing else, I think that really proves his level of commitment and also his appropriate level of insanity. He's been off the cuff at times.

Like, I don't know if you saw on a recent GT Live, but Tom was here on the couch with me, and he actually denied that the moon existed, which was a choice. Main character from the chat says, that sounds like somebody who doesn't have a flag on the moon. I mean, that's if you believe it's even that. The moon? I don't think he actually believes that, but if he does, we're going to get some weird Majora's mask theories. Let me tell you. When I go out at this point, I am recognized at least five times.

It's crazy. It's a really high number at this point. And it's a fascinating split because 50% of the time, it's like, oh my gosh, you're Matt Pat. you were my childhood. I loved watching your FNAF theories. And I'm always like, well, you know, FNAF's still going. And they're like, what? No way. And we talk about the new game and it's always really fun. But the other half is, oh my gosh, you're Matt Pat. You are my childhood. I'm watching you right now. I loved your most recent theory. That's awesome. That's such an honor. I have been so honored to be a part of all of your lives. But I think it's time for someone else

to have that honor. I think it's time for someone else to get to ruin some childhood. And that just kind of leaves us with one final question, right? Which is, what about me? You know, where do I go? Do I just retire to a beach somewhere? Do I whip a nay-ne off into the distance? No, I'll still be here. Obviously, first off, we've got our final 10 episodes, like I said. So that's, well, it wasn't 10 episodes. However many episodes are left between now and March 9th. We got those. I'm going to be on GT Live from now until the foreseeable future. Probably until the end of the summer, that feels about right. And then we have the big going away video on March 9th. And after that, I, you know, stand aside as Santi, Lee, Amy, and Tom step up and take over the hosting role.

But I'm still going to be here. I'm still going to be alongside the creative directors talking about programming, brainstorming ideas for upcoming episodes. That's awesome. I love that. I don't want to give that up. But the other cool thing about this is that it opens up the door for me to turn the script. For the last 13 years, I've been commenting on other people's IP. But now that I'm stepping out of those roles, I get to create the IP.

Still as a part of theorist, but I get to create things that are going to challenge those new hosts of the channel Things that I've had in the back of my mind from years of studying media then I can now make a reality and the channels can comment on them Things like, for instance, I have a lo-fi mystery series that I think you're really gonna dig It's basically like if you took a lo-fi channel and applied an ARG narrative to it it becomes lorefai I am so stoked about this the music is sounding really good the animations are coming together really well That's gonna be launching in a couple weeks. We'll see if the Lee over on film theory is going to be able to solve it. In April, I'm actually going to be coming back onto style theory to host a giant fashion

show that we're doing there. We all collectively had this thought of like, hey, online brands, online influencers are coming up with their own apparel lines. Why is there no place to showcase that sort of stuff? And then it hit us like, hey, we have a style and fashion channel. Why aren't we doing it ourselves? Creators in fashion by style theory that is coming to you in April, hosted by me some of the time that I'm not hosting the channels, I'm going to be practicing my runway walk.

Because let me tell you, if I'm sashing down the runway, if I'm stomping the runway, it's not going to be pretty right now. So I need to practice that a little bit. There's also this animation show that we did a pilot for in like the middle of last year. It's basically like if you took Gravity Falls but aged it up and made it about adulting. It's really, really solid. And also there's this video game idea that I want to do for like so long that I've never had the opportunity to really like dive into and make reality. But now it's my chance to step into the role of Scott Cawthon and challenge the new game theorist. There's always been the memes about are Scott Cawthon and I the same person?

Not yet, but who knows? Maybe starting later this year. And those are just the immediate things that I have on my to-do list because I want to make fun, cool things for you. And even if it's not a weekly episode, I still want to give those things to you. Because I think you'll like them. You matter to me. You are so important to me. Every single one of those people who stop me on the street, it's an honor, right? It's interesting.

Because of this whole transition, I've been thinking a lot about my time on these channels and the evolution that we've gone to together. In the beginning, right, I was kind of like the edgy older brother where I would talk about like, oh, did you know that link is dead? And let's make some boob jokes. And then at a certain point, I evolved into Dadpat, right? I became a little bit more mature and the team around me. I had to be more careful about who I was saying was dead on a regular basis. Instead of talking about boobs, I ended up talking about Luigi's bulge. That felt like the right decision.

At this point, I think I'm kind of evolving into a grandpa pat, you know, for lack of a better term. And just like your grandparents, hopefully cool grandparents, but just like a grandparent, you know, you don't get to see me all the time. And I don't get to see you all the time. And maybe we call and talk to each other every once in a while. but at the end of the day that grandpa loves getting to see you maybe he shows up at a special event maybe he shows up at a holiday

maybe he shows up at the theory wear fashion show who knows but he so looks forward to seeing you and the love that he has for you it doesn't go away that grandpa is so proud of you and he cherishes

the relationship that you've had so much. And he is so honored to be a part of your life, to have been a part of helping you grow and helping you experience the world. And he looks forward to seeing you at the next event. And if you see him on the street, we'll hang out. And hopefully he brings you cool, fun gifts. I know this is going to sound cheesy.

And I know the internet will probably rank me over the coals. for crying for one, but I love you guys. I do. You're not just numbers. You're not just add impressions. You're not just merch sales. What you have done for me, and from everyone I talked to, what I've done for you is special.

It's special. When I was in middle school, I had this goal of making the world a better place because I had been a part of it. Didn't have to be big. Didn't have to be curing cancer. But I wanted there to have been a ripple impact. Just because I was there, butterfly effect and all that.

I think we've been able to achieve something great here. You have taken me on the wildest, craziest, 13-year ride of my life. I'm so grateful. So, Grandpa Pat is going to sign out now. and I'll be around for a couple more weeks I'll be living around the house for a while we'll have a big family reunion celebration then I'll go off to my little shack in the woods

my retirement home down in Florida and I'll pop in every once in a while anyway at this point in my notes I had it written that we're going to start a countdown clock of that final 10 episodes final nine episodes so start that I don't know what's going to look like yet hopefully the editors don't rip off Eunizana's too much

if they do I hope they do I hope they change it. And with that, and with that I'm going to say for one of the final times, not the final time, but one of the final times. As always, my friends, remember, it's just a theory. A game theory. Thank you.