Game Theory - Markiplier, PLEASE Smash My Pokemon! (Markiplier Smash or Pass)

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he scientifically constructs the most SMASHABLE Pokemon. Credits: Writers: Matthew Patrick and Tom Robinson Editors: Tyler Mascola, Ryan Foley • KingCorphish, Jerika (NekoOnigiri) and Shannon (Bomb0i) Assistant Editor: Caitie Turner (Caiterpillart) Sound Editor: Yosi Berman Thanks to Sketchinthoughts for making our new Perfect Pokemon! ► https://sketchinthoughts.tumblr.com/ Thanks to Caitie Turner (Caiterpillart) for making our original perfect Pokemon ► https://twitter.com/caiterpillart And thank you to all of the artists who gave us permission to share their art of our perfect Pokemon! - KittyKingRO - CaffeineDemon - DarknWindie - Kiwidaru - MetalicHotchoco - Nicole Burdick - RushLight Invader - spiciemeatbale - _Pizzaowl - Skelegem - BlueKnightGirl - The_Artistic_Gremlin - Konpeimimi

Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass. What's this? Pass. Smash. Wait, why would he want to smash a bead drill? You mean like crush it? Because it's a big bug? Uh, Matt. Wouldn't that be like a, like a smoohing in or a swatting it maybe? Oh, my God. Matt. Oh. Gross. Matt, welcome to game theory. Today's episode is dumb.

Stupid, whooped, silly, willy, and all the best ways possible. We've been so serious lately talking about FNAF and Inscription and ARGs. It's time to go back to the basics. The roots of this channel. Analyzing one man deciding whether or not he'd enjoy having relations with 900 fictional animals. Ah, Markiplier. Hit it with the dab! It's still alive. It's 2020. Come out. Bring it back.

We actually have a bit of back and forth when it comes to our channels. He plays Power Wash Simulator and asks for a theory. I want a deep dive video from Matt Pat about the lore of Power Watch Simulator. I, like the good friend that I am, make the theory about it. He creates a mystery series full of lore. I dissect, said lore. He plays security breach and calls people who pick Montegolf nerds. Anyone that picks Montegolf is just a nerd.

I of course go on to pick Monte Golf. Woo, Gator Golf! But if there's one thing I love more than Mark, it's math, numbers. That sweet, sweet data! So when Mark uploaded a Smash or Pass video covering all 900 Poker That was like the stars of content aligning. The whole thing happened with no context, no explanation, and seemingly no consistency. It's pass.

I really did not mean to say smash. This is horrifying. Smash. But what if there was a subconscious pattern here? Some sort of logic that cuts through the seemingly random knee-jerk choices. What if there was a perfect Pokemon that Markiplier missed? Or better yet, what if we created for Markiplier his perfect Pokemon? I had to look into it. And with the power of math on my side, I believe I found something.

Despite the preferences that he voices in the video, his subconscious was making decisions that even he didn't fully understand. Smash. But why? Well, don't worry, Mark. As your friend, I'm here to help you out. So let's dive into this memeish madness to see what this video actually tells us about Markiplier's smash or past preferences. Also, quick disclaimer before we start, not here to cast judgment or comment on any sort of sexuality. We're just sticking into the data and the trends that Mark provided about his preferences on fictional creatures. Love equals love, even when that means Mark's love for a giant, sentient pile of sand. Weirdly smash.

When the Smasher Pass video ends, Mark has said smash to 73 Pokemon. Yes, I recognize that the video counter actually says 72, but when he says smash to Lanala, the counter doesn't go up for whatever reason. When you look at the totality of the 73 that he chose, there's a real variety here. So before we get into the whole dataset, I thought it'd be a good idea to start with the Pokemon that he didn't just choose to smash, but that he had a noticeable response to. Over the course of the video, there are three in particular that merit an over-the-top reaction.

Florgius, Saurina, and Farramosa. Slash. Slash. Mining these three upside by side, you could immediately start to see a trend appearing. What I would describe as traditionally humanoid feminine features, sultry eyes, long legs, that kind of thing.

Farimosa and Saurina even talk about these features in their Pocodex entries. Quote from Faramosa's Ultrasun entry, A life form that lives in another world, its body is thin and supple, but it also possesses great power. And from Pokemon's swords entry on Sarina, this feared Pokemon has long, slender legs and a cruel heart.

It shows no mercy as it stomps on its opponents. What this shows us is not only did these two have traditionally feminine qualities, they're also incredibly strong and prone to violence. Definitely coincides with data that we've seen from Mark in the past. How many times have I said, I want a woman that could crush my head in between her thighs. Yeah, Faramosa definitely has those step on me vibes. People might mistake me for some kind of a masochist,

which isn't true and would be ridiculous for people to think about it. In fact, I was surprised by how many Pokemon he chose that did have sharp teeth, claws, talons, and spikes. 19, to be precise, 26% of his choices. Now, obviously that means that 74% of his choices didn't have things that could cut, tear, or gouge him, but it felt like quite a high percentage for someone that vehemently denies being a masochist. Do you think Mark is a masochist? Yes. It's so completely obvious. But for some reason, he's in denial about it.

Outside of those physical features, it's about it. Nothing much to unite the key three, so I then took a look at the wider data set. And it's there that you really start to see some fascinating trends. Looking at every Pokemon Mark would smash, his overwhelming preference were Pokemon from Generation 7, 16 of the 73, roughly 22%, including choices like Zalazel and The interesting thing about that is that Generation 7 primarily took place in Alola, Pokemon's version of Hawaii, and what you know it, but Mark was born in Hawaii. Clearly, he felt some kind of deep-seated connection with the Pokemon native to his birthplace,

despite these choices being made without him recognizing anyone past Gen 1. Now we're getting into things that I have no idea. Are these even real Pokemon anymore? Sometimes the heart just can't articulate what the heart wants, but deep down, it knows what feels right. And while Mark immediately shows an innate preference for leggy Hawaiians, beyond that, He appears to be fairly open-minded. Take typing, for instance. Mark, in general, shows no discrimination.

Every type here has been smashed at least twice. But his top types are psychic, which came out to 11 smashes, closely followed by water with 10. All the rest were 8 or lower, with steel and rock being the bottom two categories. But psychic being at the top actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. We've established Mark's attraction for humanoid figures in the Pokemon. And if you look at psychic types,

a decent number of them appear to be in the human-like egg group. Even ones that don't appear there do tend to have human or fairy-like qualities, like Mew2 or the Tapu legendaries. Speaking of appearances, it's probably worth talking about color. I mean, things like type aren't necessarily obvious when you first look at them. Even the anime has this running joke about pseudo-wudo-wudo looking like a tree, but actually being a rock type. Sudo-wudo-wudo's a rock type? That's pretty hard to believe. Rock types are usually rough and rocky.

Sudo-wudo-Wodo's more like... More like a grass Pokemon. So, while Mark's type selection may have been more of a subconscious one, color is something that's very hard to ignore. when the Pokemon is right there in front of you. Looking at the primary and secondary colors of each of his choices, Mark showed a preference towards Pokemon that contained large amounts of the color, purple, closely followed by pink and black. Purple to me seemed like an obvious choice, as I've always associated with the psychics.

But when I look back at it, there aren't actually that many purple psychic types. I guess it was always the psychic energy card from the TCG that had been burned into my brain. Anyway, purple in color theory combines the calm stability of blue with the fierce energy of red. Both things that I think in by, Mark to a T. I'm pretty sure this was not part of my contract and frankly. I hate everything you stand for and everything that you are. Purple is also the color associated with royalty.

Again, a not too unfamiliar Markiplier trait. Place the crown upon my head and then call me the king of Five News and Freddice. No, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Mark's preferences when it comes to other features. Eight feet tall? Are you kidding me? She's very large, very large, very powerful, very large. Height and weight, obviously not something that's immediately obvious when you look at a Pokemon. And if you have any connection with the anime, you know that height and weight are, um, inconsistent there at best.

But I looked at it anyway. Mark did choose a couple of big boys, namely Waylord at 14 and a half meters or 47 feet long, and weighing in at the whopping 398 kilograms or 87 pounds. Something tells me, Mark, in that situation, you're not the one doing the smashing. And while that's certainly one end of the spectrum, he once again shows a willingness to diversify his tastes. with him going so far as to smash Sinistee, the black T Pokemon that measures in at 0.1 meters, or 4 inches tall, and weighs in at only 0.2 kilograms or 0.4 pounds. All that being said, when you look at the graph, there is a definite trend here.

Sure, there are a number of outliers, but most of his choices were under 100 kilograms and also under 2 meters in height, with his averages sitting at 1.53 meters, just over 5 foot tall, and 58 kilograms, or 130 pounds. The average woman in the United States is 1.5 meters, or 5.3.5 inches tall, weighs in at 77.5 kilograms or 171 pounds. So in spite of Markiplier's insistence that he likes them big... How many times have I said I want a woman that could crush my head in between her thighs? The evidence actually shows that his preference is for Pokemon that are smaller than average. I'm King of the Squirrels! I mean, I wasn't implying that small, but you did just help me segue into my next point, animal groups.

You know, mammals, fish, reptiles, birds, amphibians, invertebrates, those sorts of groups. It's a very simple way for us to group animals based on certain features. The Pokemon world already has its own version of this, which is the egg groups, but egg groups are weirdly unspecific, especially when it comes to some of the larger categories. The field group, for instance, is the most common group, so it's not surprising that it came out as the number one in Markiplier's pick of Pokemon. But the group itself is very random. There are mammals like Lop Bunny, but also reptiles like Arbock and birds like Blaziken. So as the group consists of many different types and appearances, it seemed pretty unhelpful from a data standpoint.

Hence, I broke the data down into what each Pokemon looks like, adding a couple of extra categories like objects, ghosts, plants, and humans to cover all the bases. I initially thought that birds were going to be at the top because so many of his picks were just straight up birds like swana and mandibus. But the data was actually a bit more spread out than I expected with four groups all basically tied for the top slot. Birds, bugs, mammals, and humanoids. I did try to take it a step further. Maybe it wasn't actual birds that came out on top, but maybe bird-like faces pointed and sharp features. Think Pokemon like Zoraark with its elongated face or Malamar, who's more like a squid, but has a beak and is just very long.

However, the data surprised me here, as 18 faces do fit the sharp pointed description, but it was trounced by the 35 Pokemon he chose with rounded facial features, like Gardevars, Sligu, Ledyan, and of course, Magneton. Can't get much rounder than literal orbs. Now obviously we can't measure things like age when it comes to Pokemon, other than the odd Pokedex entry like Florgias that talks about him being centuries old. Evolution, on the other hand, is measurable. How many evolutions in each Pokemon's evolutionary chain, how do they evolve, what stage

within the evolutionary chain does Markiplier prefer, and it seems like you like some mature. Of the 73 smashes, 42 were fully evolved forms, and 33 of those came from a two-step evolution process. It's also worth noting that most of his choices were evolutions brought about by leveling rather than things like items, friendship, or trading. Weirdly, the results tell us what I think we can all agree on. Mark works hard, and he surrounds himself with people who also work hard.

He puts a lot of effort into his content. He works out regularly. At least I thought he did. You exercise often and stay active. Oh, not lately. And so he appreciates a Pokemon in his life that's not going to be there just for show, but instead is going to be putting in the effort alongside him. But effort into what?

What skills does he find particularly useful? Well, it turns out Mark wants a companion that stays close to him and can fend off attackers from a distance, one that he would never have to send directly out into dangerous territory. In short, he's a big fan of Pokemon with high special attack stats and low defense stats. To me, this translates to Mark being fiercely loyal and protected. over a small handful of people, keeping them very close, keeping them safe, but maybe being distant himself to those outside of his inner circle. And just like that, we've come to the end of my data-driven journey.

In all the data collection, these were the strongest and most interesting results, but what if we took it a step further? I know Mark reacted to all the Pokemon. His list is definitive of what he would and would not smash, but what if there was something he missed? One that in the flow of the video, he said pass on without considering. What is the perfect Pokemon for Markiplier based on all the data that we just crunched. It's time I pull out the big guns, or as the man himself would say,

this is big brain time. So, after analyzing all our data, we can determine that Markiplier's perfect match needs to be about 4 foot 5 inches to 5 foot tall, 1.35 to 1.53 meters, and weigh in between 80 and 128 pounds, 36 to 58 kilos. They need to be a purple psychic type with high special attack and low physical defense. They need to be the fully evolved form of a two-step evolutionary line, which is achieved via leveling up. They need to be in the field egg, and more specifically have the appearance of a mammal, bird, human, or bug. And ideally they got some strong, long legs that he can crush his head between. And so, plugging all that into the computer, we get, drum roll please,

Nothing. Mark didn't just pass on one by accident. All the features just don't exist in one package. But don't worry, theorists, I wasn't content to leave you or Mark empty-handed. Maybe there's a Pokemon that's close enough? One that ticks almost all the boxes, just not quite all of them. After digging around for several hours on my life that I'll never get back, I present to you the Pokemon that fits the bill, Mean Shao.

Height right in the pocket at 1.4 meters. Weight right there at 35.5 kilos. Mean Shao isn't a psychic type. But it is definitely purple, has low physical defense, and is the final form of a two-stage evolution. And to round it all off, Mean Shao is a mammal and part of the field egg group. And what's most interesting of all

was Mark's response to Meen Shao during his video. That would definitely make me a furry pass. He paused to think about his decision. But what ultimately made him pass was the idea of the social stigma, what people might perceive him to be if he were to make that choice. Otherwise, it seemed like he was all ready to say smash, like he smashed a lot funny just moments before asking the exact same thing. Will this make me a furry if I said smash?

Smash. I guess what I and the data are collectively trying to say is, Mark, just go with your heart. Don't let society tell you what's right or wrong for you to smash? After all, Diamond and Pearl explicitly state that, quote, there once were people who married Pokemon. This was a normal thing because of... long ago, people and Pokemon were the same. So wanting to smash Pokemon isn't about being a furry,

instead it's just about following the natural order, where Pokemon could become people and people could become Pokemon, and there was no judgment on either side. And you know, I think we could all learn a little lesson from that. And who knows? The Pokemon company did just announce a brand new generation, Pokemon's Scarlet and Violet, so maybe this new generation will provide Mark with his perfect Pokemon. But then again, that's an awfully long time to wait,

so how about I take matters into my own hands? Well, uh, not literally my hands, considering I have zero art skills whatsoever, but instead I decided to hire an artist to design Mark's perfect Pokemon for us using all the attributes that we talked about today, one with a generally rounded face but pointy features and sultry eyes. A purple mammal that would conceivably have psychic abilities, maybe some long, strong legs that could crush a man's head, as well some sharp claws for good measure, a Pokemon that suggests femininity but without being overly sexualized, and all of it wrapped inside of a character design that, you know, could conceivably

appear in a future Pokemon game as opposed to something that was just designed for Mark's visual entertainment. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Mark Applyers Perfect Pokemon. I have to say, no matter what Mark thinks, I think this turned out great. You keep your leering male gaze elsewhere, my friend. I love this design. Not in a smashable way, though not necessarily not in a smashable way. I just think it's great. I feel like I should submit it to Game Freak.

I think our artist crushed it. She did an incredible job. All right, so Mark just uploaded his React. to my perfect Pokemon. Really excited. Alright, here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Mark Appliar's perfect Pokemon.

Alright. It's awesome. Turn out so well. It's uncomfortable watching him. I analyze it. Okay. Getting in on the details. Sure.

Go? No, no. Put away the wasted effect. This doesn't deter me at all. If anything, this is made. me stronger. If you think you're gonna crush my dreams with one word, think again, and back. And I'm not giving up. My middle name is determined Patrick. Matthew, determined Robert Patrick. Makes perfect sense. I calculated everything so perfectly. I spent hours going

through your video, looking at every detail, every shape, every color. I even analyzed your facial expressions to gaze your reactions and I followed that data to a T. And you pass. Because you seem to assume things that aren't even there, No matter what I say. I have integrity. Unlike some people, Matthew, Patrick. I refuse to accept that. Because the joke's on you, Mark, I'm not done.

Have you seen how many times I've been wrong about FNAF? Your rejection just makes me more determined. So I did what any same person would do. I went back to those same tables and spreadsheets, re-analyzed the data, and brought in an artist to have one more attempt to appease Mark's strange Pokemon desires. And what do you do with your free time? Last time we decided to go with a mammal for our base design as we felt like that gave us the most flexibility to work with But that may very well have been part of the problem there are many mammals out there in the world all of which look very different from each other a cat is nothing like an elephant and an elephant is nothing like a whale

The point is the category was just too broad so this time I wanted to go with one of his other preference categories Looking at the data in addition to mammals mark also smashed a high number of humanoids bugs and birds We decided to take humanoids off the table because we didn't really want to pay someone to draw sexy, almost humans. Bugs could have been fun, but looking at his bug choices, they seemed very memeish. I think he was choosing a lot of those for the Laws, which left us making a bird Pokemon. Now, there is a huge variety within bird-type Pokemon.

After all, I'm not entirely sure what this thing is really supposed to be, but on the whole, birds in the Pokemon world do remain relatively similar, sharing key features like beaks and talons, features, which we know appeal to Mark's masochistic side. So, with that as our base, I felt pretty. darn confident that this time we'd be able to hit a home run. From there, I also wanted to draw some inspiration from a data point that didn't really make it into our final design last time. During that video, I briefly mentioned that Mark had a thing for Generation 7 Pokemon, considering that this was where most of his smashes came from, 16 in total. As a reminder, Gen 7 was the era of Sun and Moon, games that took place in the Alola region,

Pokemon's version of Hawaii. He even specifically smashed two bird Pokemon from that region, Oroquario and Deciduai. Considering that Mark is originally from Hawaii, maybe these Pokemon were tapping into some subconscious desire related to the place of his birth. So this time around, I wanted to find a way to include some more Hawaiian elements into the overall design, starting with what bird to base it on. Hawaii has its fair share of native bird species, but during our process, we all fell in love with the honey creeper, a species that comes in a variety of colors and beak shapes. Now, I just mentioned that Mark smashed Oricorio, which, what you know, is also based on the honey creeper and comes in four varieties. So using that as a base felt like it would be putting us in a strong position.

I mean, if he liked the original design, which doesn't even hit on all the data points that we covered in our first video, then surely by adding to it, we could create something that was truly irresistible. But I didn't just want to leave the Hawaii theme there. As much as I love Mark, I'm not convinced that he's read up on his Hawaiian fauna, so I needed to do more if I wanted to truly sell it. And then it hit me. When you think of Hawaii, what are some of the first things that come to your mind? For me, it's flowers. Specifically, the Hibiscus flower. If you've ever been to Hawaii, you'll know that one of the best things,

biggest traditions is to offer guests Alley made of flowers, often Hibiscus when they arrive. This is because the Hibiscus is a symbol of friendship and hospitality. So by given our bird Pokemon plumage in the style of Allay, I was hoping to tap into Mark's subconscious. This Pokemon not only representing his birthplace, but also welcoming him back home, giving him a sense of comfort and belonging. Even from a non-subconscious perspective, Mark did smash a number of Pokemon that visually used plants or flowers.

The obvious one being Florges, he did have quite the reaction to it after all. So, including flowers in the design will hopefully yield similar results. But it doesn't even stop there. The Hibiscus flower also has another meaning, that of divine femininity. One of the major data points that we discovered during our initial video was that Mark was drawn to Pokemon with more traditionally feminine qualities. So, it only made sense to include a Hibiscus to once again act on Mark's subconscious, adding to the obvious feminine features that we'd want to give it. Specifically, we put the flower on the left-hand side of its face,

which according to Hawaiian tradition is a sign that the Indian individuals ready to take a lover. So there's your invitation, Mark. It is ready for you to come in and sweep it off its feet. From there, we're leaning a lot into the other elements that we felt confident about last time. We've kept it psychic typing, so an overall intelligent look was a must. We of course had to give this thing some strong head-crushing legs. Nefer kitty had strong legs, but as Mark passed on that one, I wanted to go bigger, I wanted to go stronger, I wanted to go pointier. So there was no question what this thing was going to be capable of. Bulging leg muscles, talons that could really hurt once

they dug in and some knee-high boot-styled feathers for the perfect step-on-me vibes like we saw from Mark's original top three picks. For color, we once again wanted purple to be the primary, because that was obviously Mark's favorite based on the data. But with our new Honeycreeper inspiration, we wanted to do something that leaned more on the lighter side. Last time we stuck with darker, more dusty purple tones. But Honey Creepers are brightly colored with strong black accents around the eyes and wings, and considering Mark's second favorite color was black, that was gonna work well for us. Speaking of eyes, we also wanted to add an air of confident mystery to this design, something that said strong and seductive, but also unobtainable.

So we had our Pokemon front-facing, but we specifically kept one eye covered, giving it that strong, seductress look, but also making you curious as to what it could be hiding. And of course, I've already mentioned the flowers, but those also needed to be bright and colorful to match the Hawaiian feel that we were going with, something that would contrast with the purple nicely, but also feel natural for a honeycreeper. So, you got all that? You have an understanding. visually of what this thing is going to look like.

Well, with all those pieces in place, I present to you, Mark Applier's new perfect Pokemon. It's beautiful. Mark, if you are not into this one, then I know you must be trolling me at this point. Look at it. The power, the mystique? Why is it hiding its eye behind those beautiful feathers? What psychic power does this thing truly hold? Joking aside, I think more than anything this taught me, and hopefully taught you too,

how many small details go into a design like this. Everything from the animal inspiration, the overall shape, color, length of features, expression, shading, all of it trying to tell a complete story of who this creature is in one still picture. Now, go and repeat this 150 more times and you've got yourself a generation of Pokemon. It's no wonder they make some of these things vanilla ice cream cones. They are just exhausted by this process. This took us a couple weeks of back and forth with our artist. Just to give you an idea, here's a few of the dozens of samples and iterations that we tried before settling on this one.

Look at how the small changes in posture and shape make such a big, difference in the look and feel of the Pokemon. And I think that there's still more we could have done. That's just the trick of creative stuff like this. It can cycle in on itself constantly being refined and perfected, but I think for our overall mission, it feels based on the data like we ticked every single box. This is truly everything that Markiplier could have possibly wanted. Well, almost everything.

See, this whole time we've been relying on the data, but maybe that's the real problem here. Maybe the moral of the story is that data can't always solve everything, that some things just can't be quantified that sometimes you need a bit of the human touch just like algorithms can't form the perfect show so too can algorithms not design the most smashable Pokemon so you know what I went in and threw away my checklist I scrapped the numbers and I trusted my gut knowing everything that I know about Mark I made what I guarantee to be his perfect irresistible Pokemon just try to pass on this one I mean he is a self-proclaimed raging narcissist after all I was so wrapped up in my own self-image, my narcissism, oozing out of every pore of my body.

So what could possibly be a better fit? So there you have it. My second and third attempts to crack the code. And don't worry, this is going to be my final attempt. At the end of the day, I'm just a boy standing in front of another boy asking him to smash my Pokemon. But you know what? If it doesn't work out this time, I guess there are always other magic harp in the sea. But hey, that's just a theory.

A game theory. Thanks for watching.