| “ | Hello Internet, Welcome to Game Theory | ” |
―MatPat's Intro | ||
Matthew Patrick (born: November 15, 1986), better known online as The Game Theorists or MatPat, is an American YouTuber whose Game Theory channel's main focus is educational videos about video games. The channel usually delves into deep and unspoken topics of video games, including the representation of culture behind video games and connecting one video game universe to another. As the channel's name suggests, one of the main topics is delving deep into video game theories. The channel became popular extremely fast, as he was credited for his clever humor and analyzation of video game related topics, gathering the attention of other YouTubers. as of 2015, MatPat has collaborated with many YouTubers like Smosh Games, Markiplier, TheJWittz, The Warp Zone, FBE and TheNationalDex.
History
The channel was created on August 29, 2009, originally going by the name of MatthewPatrick13, and originally featured clips uploaded by Patrick of him auditioning for various theatre shows, as well as clips of him performing in theatre shows, as originally Patrick had been a performer and aspiring director prior to becoming a YouTuber.
Patrick stopped uploading these clips sometime in mid-2009 and no new content was added to his channel for an extensive period of time. Uploads didn't restart on the channel until April 14, 2010, when Patrick officially announced the series he was creating, called Game Theory.[1]
Just over a year later, another show was announced for The Game Theorist's channel, known as Game Exchange. On July 2, 2012, a video was uploaded with voice-over by MatPat and Gaijin Goombah, the series' host, explaining that a new series known as Game Exchange was following a similar format to that of Game Theory, with the differences being a change in host, as well as the show focusing more on the History and Culture of things in gaming rather than the Science.
Roughly one month later on August 30, 2012, a third (and now former) show appeared on the Game Theorists channel known as Digressing and Sidequesting (sometimes stylized as Digressing & Sidequesting or abbreviated to DNSQ). Unlike the previous shows, Digressing & Sidequesting focuses on exploring aspects of Game Design and Mechanics, and discusses various topics such as Hitpoints and Health Bars, as well as asymmetrical gaming in consoles such as the Wii U, and was hosted by the new (and now former) video editor for Game Theory, Ronnie "Oni" Edwards.
The following year, on December 28, 2013, the fourth running series on the Game Theorist Channel was unveiled. Known as Crossover, this series was hosted by Drake McWhorter and Kenny Landefield and aimed to unite all of gamings most iconic characters into one universe by looking at crossovers (where the shows name is derived from) of characters in different gaming universes and how they could act as links in between games. In the announcement video narrated by Drake, they link Mario to Gears of War as an example of how the show does.
In 2017, Austin from Shoddycast along with his series The Science, moved to the "The Game Theorists", making him the fifth host of Game Theory. His first The Science video uploaded on The Game Theorists channel was The Science of Pokemon would KILL YOU.
As of currently has four hosts, MatPat, Gaijin Goomba, Drake, and Austin. Regular segments of the show include Game Theory, Game Exchange, Crossover, and The Science. However, Game Exchange and Crossover have not been uploaded as regularly as before, and they seem to have been swapped with Culture Shock and Smash History.
Content
The Game Theorists has many different regular segments by their four hosts. MatPat is the host of the titular segment, Game Theory which delves deep into popular theories of video games as well as many different theories that MatPat thinks of.
The second host, Gaijin Goomba, runs two different segments. The regular segment he hosts, Game Exchange, explores the hidden culture behind a single game. Gaijin usually focuses on one game per episode, sometimes even one big section of culture shown through a game. The second, and less frequent, a segment he hosts is Culture Shock which are short 3-5 minute videos that showcase one small bit of culture in a video game that Gaijin Goomba finds interesting but is too small to put into a full episode of Game Exchange.
The third, Drake host the regular segment, Crossover where he shows the connections between two very different video game franchises, such as Mario and Gears of War, and how every video game universe could exist in the same universe. He also hosts a segment called Smash History, which takes a look at a character's move set in SSB and sees which games from the character's franchise they originate from.
The fourth and last host, Austin, hosts The Science, a show he used to host on ShoddyCast. Similarly to MatPat, his theories are based on Science of Videogames and how they would work in the real world.
As a former host and video editor, Ronnie hosted the segment DNSQ (Digressing and Sidequesting). In DNSQ, Ronnie talked about the different and various aspects of different video games and how they affect different video games, as well as how they affect the mainstream line of things.
Segments
- Game Theory
- Game Exchange
- Culture Shock (2014-2017)
- Crossover (2013-2014)
- DNSQ (Digressing and Sidequesting) (2011-2016)
- Smash History (2014-2016)
- Deadlock
- Reality Check
- A Brief History (2014-2017)
- The Science
- Game Lab (YouTube Red)
Whilst not a segment of the show, at the end of each episode of Game Theory, MatPat holds a Super Amazing Endcard Tournament where watchers vote for a topic which usually has to do with another video in the future or a completely random topic.
Other/alternate channels
MatPat also owns two other channels, the Film Theorists, and GTLive. The Film Theorists takes on a very similar style as The Game Theorists, but instead focuses, as the channel's name suggests, on film and television.
The GTLive channel was created as a place for viewers to watch the live streams streamed by Patrick and his wife Stephanie, in case they were previously unable to view them.
As part of an original series on YouTube Red, MatPat and other gamers participate in events where they attempt the things done in video games such as defusing "bombs", doing parkour and using stealth to avoid detection. Every episode of Game Lab also has a separate, short 360 video where the viewer can "experience" the same thing done in the actual episode. These videos, unlike the actual Game Lab videos, are fully free to watch.
Madpat
Madpat is the evil alter ego of MatPat who rarely appears in videos.
Outside of The Game Theorists
Outside of The Game Theorists, each of the main hosts (with the exception of MatPat) of the shows all own their own personal channels. Gaijin Goombah owns a channel by the same name where he also uploads his content.
Ronnie "Oni" Edwards' Death
On July 25, 2018, it was confirmed by MatPat in a video that one of the channel's main hosts and editors, Ronnie "Oni" Edwards, was found dead on July 4, 2018 after commiting suicide. The reason behind Ronnie's death is still unknown, but MatPat explained that Ronnie had been struggling with some mental illnesses and long term famiy issues Which may have contributed to his suicide.
Ronnie will always be remembered for his excellent editing techniques and contributions to Game Theory and the Internet. You will be missed.
Subscriber Milestones
- 1 million subscribers: December 18, 2013.
- 2 million subscribers: April 24, 2014.
- 3 million subscribers: October 19, 2014.
- 4 million subscribers: March 3, 2015.
- 5 million subscribers: August 20, 2015.
- 6 million subscribers: March 18, 2016.
- 7 million subscribers: October 9, 2016.
- 8 million subscribers: April 12, 2017.
- 9 million subscribers: November 18, 2017.
- 10 million subscribers: April 18, 2018.
- 11 million subscribers: August 20, 2018.
Trivia
- He has his own character in the game "The Walking Dead: Road to Survival".
- He calculated the amount of Mario Maker levels "makable" and "fun" which he named the MarioPlex and equals to 10^12431. (6th Aug 2017)
- On March 12, 2018, MatPat announced on all of his social media pages that he and his wife, Steph, will be having a baby. The baby, which was revealed to be names Oliver or "Oli" for short, was born in Early-Mid July, 2018.
- The Game Theorists hit 10 million subscribers on April 18, 2018, exactly seven years after MatPat uploaded his first episode of Game Theory.
Collaborations with other YouTubers
The Game Theorists sometimes collaborates with other YouTubers, for example MatPat appeared in Screen Junkies Honest Trailer for Warcraft
References
This page was created on January 3, 2014 by Jimter.