Hi, I'm MatPat from YouTube's Game Theory and Film Theory. AMA!

Have you ever posted a Game theory episode, that you felt was terrible? Or at least of bad quality? (Implying that you had the feeling upon release, not just several years after you uploaded it)

No, actually. And I know that might sound like a weird answer, but I try to keep a really high threshold of what I will and won't post. And so, we addressed it earlier in the AMA where we'll research for weeks on end to make sure that the episode at the end of the day is saying something interesting or unique insightful, teaching you something interesting. And, if it doesn't kind of match that quality level, I won't go through with it.

So there've been episodes that have been fully scripted out, where at the end, I'll look at it and I'm like, "I'm not happy how this turned out. We either need to rewrite it, find a way to make it work, or just kind of move on to a different topic."

So, going back, are there episodes that I'm prouder of than others? Absolutely. Are there episodes that I like more than others? Absolutely. But is there an individual episode that I would go back and change, and take down? No. I would say not.

What is your opinion on Europeans having to pay €2,50 per Youtube Red video, rather than a $10 monthly subscription?

So I know that YouTube is working to bring YouTube Red to a lot of different countries all across the world, so that way the service is available to everyone, worldwide. But in the meantime, it was really important for YouTube, and for us, to make sure that all of you had access to the show as soon as possible, as soon as it was released. Because the worst thing that can happen, in a lot of cases, is you sitting there knowing that a show is happening, but you have no access to watch it.

And so, as of right now, buying on a per-episode basis in a lot of these other territories, is the best possible way to make that happen today. That being said, should you wait until YouTube Red is available in your neck of the woods? Sure, that's a perfectly valid way to do it. And let me tell you, Game Lab isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It will always be up on the platform for you to watch and enjoy. So whether it makes sense for you to buy it now on an episode-to-episode basis? Great, awesome, thank you for the support. If not though, and you want to wait until YouTube is available in your neck of the woods? Awesome too.

Either way, at the end of the day, it's just making sure that you know the episodes are there, they'll be there when you're ready for them, when you're ready to subscribe, ready to buy, or you're in a better financial situation. At the end of the day, just knowing that you're so interested and excited to see the series means a lot. And so, things like the free VR episodes, and the free episode of Mirror's Edge, hopefully, will tide you over until you're ready to make the purchase elsewhere down the line.

Hey, MatPat, Ronnie here. What was the weirdest problem that needed to be solved during filming?

Hey Ronnie!

Well clearly, Ronnie, it was you. Your lack of enthusiasm for being on my team on the For Honor episode swordfighting, was clearly the biggest hurdle I had to overcome for the entire series.

Dear MatPat:

ARE YOU SANS?!

I'm sans, just as much as papyrus is a star man. Leave it at that.

Hi, MatPat! I’ve been a fan of your show for a couple years, since Bullet Bill. My AMA questions to you are:

What was your first date with Stephanie like? What was it like making your first game theory? Will you make more theories about the physics/math of games? Those are definitely my favorite. Will you be doing more collabs in the future? When are you going to get kids?

My first date with Stephanie? Oooo that's a good question! I would say the first date with Stephanie that I had, we went to the gym together. She thought I was this weird theatre kid who just kind of followed her around, followed her back from computer science class but I secretly had a crush on her the whole time. I asked her to go to the gym with me, a long time ago. Gym doesn't happen anymore haha. At the time, Stephanie was really shy. I was like that outgoing, like really... fruity is not the right word but kind of fruity theatre kid. So when I tried to take a picture with her, she kind of curled up and was like "Don't take a picture of me. Don't take a- you're embarrassing me." Or whatever. Meanwhile, I'm like, "Yeah this is SO cool!" So it was a good mix of personality. I was trying pull her out of her shell, she was trying to pull me back and over time we found a balance of finding the right personality match for the two of us. The gym though, super romantic. I know how to treat a lady. This is it. Heart throb, right here! Let's go get our swoll on.

And absolutely, I'll be doing more collabs in the future. In fact, this weekend I'm going to film with CaptainSparklez, we're going to be doing an episode, I believe, where we suck some helium and rap lyrics. Kind of redundant but nothing like chipmunks rapping, rappers delight. I don't know rap songs obviously.

So u/Puthla, you ask a lot of questions, but I think the one to start off with is what it's like to make my first Game Theory. It was really intimidating. I had no idea what I was doing. At the time, Stephanie and I were looking at other gaming shows to see what was popular. So, we were watching shows like, Extra Credits, on Escapist Magazine, the website. We were watching the Angry Video Game Nerd, and we were getting a sense of how fast they talked, what their style was, what colors they used, things like that, all to kind of learn and optimize our show, to make it better and more interesting for gamers.

But, I kid you not, we went through probably three different scripts for that first episode of the Chrono Trigger vs. Time Travel episode. The show in its very first form was just like, "Hey, Chrono Trigger talks about time travel, but here's a book you want to read if you want to learn about time travel. Here's an article online that you want to read about. Here's a movie that you want to watch. So, completely different from the theories that we do today.

And eventually, we just kind of learned that, wow, that's really boring. Why don't we tie it back closer to the video game? And I still remember the day that we pushed it live, and how nervous I was to see, kind of, the response from people who would potentially be watching it. Luckily, the response was favorable, and here we are today.

When it comes to doing theories about the physics and science of games, math in general, absolutely, those will always be a part of the channel of Game Theory. When I'm constructing the episodes that we're going to roll out on the channel, I try to find a balance of ones that are more conspiratorial and more lore based, like unearthing the secrets and is Mario really the bad guy and balancing it out against ones that are kind of more mathy and calculation based. How much Minecraft diamond armor would be worth, the physics of Chun Lee's helicopter spinning kick, things like that. That way you guys, as the viewers, don't get bored with the type of episodes that we're producing. You will see some math episodes, balanced against some lore based episodes and every once in a while, throwing in some meta theories. The ones that are commenting on either the video game industry or on YouTube trends and things like that.

Hi Mat! Just wondering, are you excited for the new Zelda that is coming out in this E3? Are you gonna make a Game Theory of it, and ruin our beloved franchise? Just making sure. By the way, love your new show!

Oh fantastic! I'm so glad you like it u/Zeldahood and of course with your username, to have a Zelda question! Absolutely I'm excited about the new Zelda! I mean, right now, there's not much known about it so anytime there's a new Zelda, I'm excited about it. It's one of my all time favorite franchises, I've played pretty much every game in the franchise. So I'm always looking forward to a new main series Zelda title. We'll find out more in E3. Do I anticipate doing an episode on it? You can bet that something is coming.

So, in fact, not to spoil too much, there's a possibility of a new deadlock dedicated to the new Zelda with a very special guest that might be filming at E3. So, get excited for that! I know I am! I'm really excited about it!

What are your top 5 video games and movies?

Can we talk about Rampart?

Hey. Can we expect a Kingdom Hearts Game Theory? Also, interested in being in a movie I'm making about the internet?

Yes! Cinema starring role!

Kingdom Hearts has been to this day one of the most requested franchises that we've had on the channel, and it falls on a weird spot. I love those games, personally, but the lore to those games is so complicated and convoluted that it's hard for people who aren't familiar with all the spin-off games to just understand.

One of the things that I always try to do with Game Theory episodes is to make sure that, even if you're not necessarily a fan of the franchise, you'll still get something out of the theory; you'll still be able to appreciate it, you'll still get a good laugh, or, "Oh wow, that's a really interesting franchise that I want to explore." The problem with Kingdom Hearts is, there's so much lore and it's so complicated that, by the time I'm addressing Xion and Xehanort and Roxas and Sora's connection, I've already lost you! I've already lost you in this comment probably! At this point.

Will I be re-looking at the franchise now that Kingdom Hearts 3 is coming out? You can bet. And if there's any way that I can kind of create a simple mind blowing theory around the franchise, I would love to do it. It's just one of those things that has been tricky up to this point, and I'm hoping Kingdom Hearts 3 gives me a good entrance point to create a theory that can apply to both the superfans of the franchise, as well as people who might be hearing about the game for the first time.

Have you heard of the Stanley Parable and would you be interested in playing it on GTLive and/doing a theory on it?

Oh my gosh, the Stanley Parable! YES! I've heard of it, and I've tried to purposefully stay blind to it, because I know so much of it is kind of that first reaction when you go through the experience. So, I have heard of it, but I don't know that much about it, and I've always been very curious and very fascinated to actually play that game. Would I do it for GT Live? Absolutely. In fact, you're not the first person to request that. Earlier this week at the Game Lab launch party, someone else requested that.

So, we'll make sure that we bump it up higher on the list. Because it's one that I've always been excited to learn about, and just have never set aside the time to do, but it's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen sooner because you asked that question. So when it happens, just know, it was thanks to you.

Lame question. You always poke fun at Steph for being short, but on today's stream she didn't look a whole lot shorter than you. How tall are you?

I do give Stephanie a hard time for being short, but that's only because I'm also short. 5'10". #SizeDoesntMatter

I recently watched a stream where you talked about unmade Final Fantasy video. How many other ideas never get made into a video and which idea was the hardest to abandon?

Oooh, that's a really good one. First off, appreciate the username, u/Doctor_ex_Machina. But, I would say that, man, there's actually a surprising number. We'll go weeks or months thinking about a theory, researching it, and eventually have to let it go, simply because we're not able to say something interesting about it. In order to maintain kind of like a high quality video and a high quality of theory, we always want to make sure that there's enough research and enough thought put into it, that it's like, "Hey, this is something that is mindblowing, or this is changing the way I look at this franchise," as opposed to releasing something that's half researched and that either I or one of the other people that work on the team can spot all the holes in.

So we always try to kind of like sew up as many holes as possible, and if it's not possible, then we just don't release the episode. I would say, probably like once a month we're throwing out a theory that we've researched, that we were really wanting to do, and just didn't quite work out the way we had hoped.

Hardest one to have thrown away that I hope we're able to salvage one of these days is the relationship between Peach and Pauline from the Mario series. So if you look back at the original Donkey Kong games, you rescue a princess named Pauline, who wears pink and has kind of orangish-yellow hair. She looks a lot like Princess Peach does nowadays. And then we move to the first ever Mario Brothers game, Super Mario Brothers, and you're rescuing Princess Toadstool, who has like, dark red, kind of bright orange hair, which doesn't look anything like Pauline, and doesn't look like Princess Peach today. So I had this theory, where Pauline is the current-day Peach, and this Princess Toadstool is someone completely different. I tried every which way, every scientific angle that I could to like, make it work; it just hasn't. Maybe one day in the future, but that was by far the hardest one that I let go. Because I literally worked on it for probably two weeks straight, and it just...didn't happen.

Hey there Matt! Just wanted to let you know that I've been a fan of yours for a little over 2 years now, and I have to say, thank you for being such an excellent content creator. I appreciate how much time and effort you, Stephanie, and the rest of the team put into each and every episode. You've certainly earned the spot as my favorite YouTuber. With that said, let's get into the AMA questions!

1. If you were to create another series similar to Game Lab or just another season of Game Lab altogether, what would you do differently? In other words, what did you learn in filming these 8 episodes of Game Lab that you would apply in creating future similar content?

2. Which theories (both Game Theory and Film Theory) have been the most difficult to research and write? The most fun? The most rewarding?

3. So. Matt. Way back in October of last year in one of your Mario Maker GTLive streams you first played a level that I created called 150 Seconds. I'm curious to know: Do you enjoy the Mario Maker streams? There has only been ONE Mario Maker stream in all of 2016 so far. I guess my real question is: are there more Mario Maker streams coming? :D

4. Finally, I'm going to ask somewhat of a hypothetical question: If you were to create a new YouTube channel right this very moment, what route would you take? Would it be another theory channel, following the pattern of Game and Film Theory? Or would you do something a bit more out of the ordinary, such as a GTVlogs or a Behind the Scenes channel? As an avid consumer of YouTube and internet culture, I'm always curious about these kinds of things.

Once again, thank you so much for creating a series that I just love watching. Video game's tangential learning experience was an excellent idea. Also, having seen the first two episodes of Game Lab, JOB WELL DONE! IT'S AMAZING! Sorry for all caps. I got excited.

Anyways, thanks so much for being the creator that you are. Never stop making videos and being kind to your fans. I look forward to your future theories, the next six episodes of Game Lab, the next #GTLive stream, and hopefully, my biggest wish, meeting you someday!

Have a great weekend. - Daniel Logan

Speaking to your first Question, I would say that if I were to do another season of Game Lab, or say, Film Lab, one of the things that I would first and foremost want to do is make sure that we had more time leading up to the actual shoot. Because of the agreement that we had with YouTube, because of the amount of time that we had to shoot the series, we had a very short pre-production period, which meant we had to find and say yes to a lot of locations and things very quickly. Which, is fine and I'm really happy with how the series turned out, but it was also just like, a lot of work in a very short amount of time.

So, being able to spread that out over a longer period, I think, would be easier for everyone involved.

The other thing that I learned would work to include is just more direct-to-camera takes for you guys. I had the benefit of doing the Reality Check episodes first, with the Rainbow Six Siege video, and that taught me a lot about finding the right balance between a more professional-level production, with lots of different cameras, and people on set, versus a YouTube production, where it's me in the closet, filming for you guys, or me in my living room, filming a live stream. And I realized that I wanted to break the fourth wall more when I filmed Game Lab, and bring you along more frequently for the experience, by making jokes to you, by directly addressing you, and to make it feel more You-Tubey. And I think Game Lab does a really good job of that, but I would like even more of that, if I were to film a future season.

Because I think it's important. I want you to feel apart of the experience. I want you to feel like, you know yes we're filming all this cool stuff, but at the end of the day, we know that you're there. And so, addressing you guys and bringing you along for the ride is top priority. So I'd include more of that in a future season.

Part 2: Most difficult theory would be Chun-Li's helicopter legs. Most rewarding would be the binding of Isaac and the Minecraft theories, because both were acknowledged and confirmed by the respective creators of the games. And most fun I would say would be the Mario/Rosalina theory, because it addressed everything from genetics, to relativity, to the French translation of Super Mario Galaxy.

Part 3: That was you! You’re 150-second creator! Clapping to you!

I love the Mario Maker streams, because I’m constantly impressed by the levels that you guys have created. Are there more Mario Maker streams on the way? Absolutely. The only reason there haven’t been quite as many as of late is because there have been a lot new franchises that I’ve wanted to play with: the Undertale hacks, the Five Nights at Freddy’s fan games, all the different YouTube themed games that have come out recently. Will I go back to Mario Maker? Absolutely. I just wanted to mix it up for a couple months just for my own sake and for your sake watching, but you can bet I’m coming for your other levels. Bring it on! Show me your worst!

Part 4: Don’t even get me started about making a new channel, I need a break for a little bit after Game Lab. That being said, if I were to start one today, it would definitely be another kind of theorist channel. We did Game Theory, we launched Film Theory coming up on a year ago. GT Live was kind of a fun little off-shoot channel, that’s more of our vloggy channel I would say. So, get back down to the science, get back down to the research, new theorist channel. There are two spots in the logo that need to be filled, it’d be time to fill up the third one!

Well Daniel, I look forward to meeting you in person and thanking you personally. 150-seconds, kept me up for nights trying to beat that level! But thank you for the amazing levels that you’ve sent in for the show and making GT Live more fun and thanks for supporting the channel.

At the end of the day, none of it would have been possible without you guys watching. The fact that there are three channels now, that Game Lab is a dream show that I get to make, it’s all thanks to you supporting me as a creator and trusting in me and being exciting to participate in a community of over-analyzers and over-thinkers.

So for as much as you think me for all the videos that we do thank you for believing in me and putting me in a position where I can do this and touch as many lives as we do on a regular basis. It’s incredible.

I like to think of it as a beneficial cycle – theorist fist bump!

Hi, MatPat! I'm a theatre student in college, and I know you graduated as a theatre major from college (theatre majors are useful in a day to day setting, contrary to what Stephanie says when she teases you), do you have any advice for me? I am stage managing next year and I'm super excited about it, just so you know (I'm even working on a stage manager kit...) ^{_^} (I love your videos just so you know.)

So advice for theatre majors: intern in as many theatres as you can. Get your name out there; work with a lot of different teams. And that's regardless of whether you're an actor, a director, a stage manager, a tech person; just go and experience as many different crews that you can.

You can never work in enough theatres because it's a business that's built around having a network of friends and of connections who know your work, and appreciate working with you.

What up MatPat! Hey I have a question for you: Are you going to make a channel called The Book Theorists, and if not, why? Also, do you have any plans to stream Super Mario Galaxy or Galaxy 2?

Probably not the Book Theorist, I would have to say, just because so much of literature is covered in film and TV. And so, for instance a good example is Game of Thrones. Book Theory would be a great place to cover Game of Thrones theories, but we also have Film Theory to do that sort of thing. So to do both would kind of be redundant.

As far as Book Theory goes, maybe not so much. Have I wanted to role out theorizing to other formats? Absolutely. Things like, Fashion Theory, Sports Theory, Music Theory, Tech Theory, are all things I'd like to do, but for the time being, just staying focused on the livestreaming, on Game Theory and Film Theory, as well as now Game Lab, is keeping me pretty well occupied. So until I have those fully on lockdown, I don't want to expand out too much, and water down the content that you're seeing.

And speaking of the streaming, Super Mario Galaxy? I'd love to stream it at some point. It's one of my all-time favorite Mario games. I think the Super Mario Galaxy games are both just so well constructed, and so unique, really you gotta hand it to Nintendo for pushing kind of the limits of what a platformer stands for. So would I stream it? Absolutely. We gotta get through kinda the FNAF clones and the Undertale hacks first, but once we get through those, Super Mario Galaxy is on the way!

What a Novel idea

U/GeekyLord59, excellent novel pun!! Happy Cake Day! Looks like I need to take a page out of your book!

Hi MatPat and Stephanie! Will motion-control games ever make a comeback to GTLive? I would love to see you guys swordfight in Wii Sports Resort!

Oh that's awesome to see, u/dho949494! Absolutely, motion controls will be a part of GT Live moving forward. Actually today, we just got done filming one with Virtual Reality and the new Vive headset, so we're trying to incorporate more in real life action, movement action games, through virtual reality, through the Wii and things like that. The only reason we haven't done quite as many of them is because we have a really small space that we film in, and so we've been trying to figure out a good way to get decent audio quality for those sorts of streams. Our problem in the past, when we did those Wii streams, was that, the room felt very echo-y and the camera was a little bit awkwardly placed, so we're still trying to figure that out. But you can expect more of those in the future! I think we have the sound issues all figured out, so get ready to see FatPat fail more at exercise games!

What VR system do you think has the most potential? * HTC Vive * Oculus Rift * Google Cardboard * ...

When it comes to VR headsets, I think they all fill different needs right now. So, Cardboard and Samsung Gear are kind of your more accessible, more everyday VR headsets. The Vive and Oculus are much more intense, involved experiences. So I think they all fill different needs in the space. I will say, I'm very impressed with the Vive. The fact that it comes packaged with the handset controllers increases the immersion value ten-fold. So, that was one that I really wasn't paying a lot of attention to coming up to launch, but now that I've gotten a chance to play with it, I'm very impressed.

You have a great voice for your Theory videos (and in general). How did you learn to talk without messing up long sentences, or do you have a lot of bloopers we never see?

Well first off, thank you for liking my voice. When I first started Game Theory, that was actually a big challenge that I had, which was whenever I would collaborate with another channel, the number one complaint I would always get is like, "Oh his voice is garbage. He has the most annoying voice ever." So, it's nice to hear that the popular opinion on my voice has changed over the years. So, making me feel good, thank you very much!

As far as where did I learn to talk in long sentences without screwing up...I don't know! I'm just really long winded! When it comes to actual Game Theory and Film Theory episodes, all of it is scripted out in advance, for the most part. There are definitely ad libs that I kinda throw in when I'm recording, but for the most part it's all pretty well scripted out. I don't have too many flubs, but I will redo lines a bunch of times, just to make sure I'm getting the right cadence, and it has the right emphasis and things.

But for the most part, how I write and how I talk on camera is just how I talk every day. A lot of people when they meet me in person are surprised, like, "You sound exactly like you do in the videos!" Or, "You talk exactly like you do in the videos!" And it's because I try to make the videos true to my voice. I'm not putting on a character or anything like that; I'm just kinda always this overly enthusiastic about stuff.

Hey! I have a couple questions. What's it like working with YouTube on your new show Game Lab? How are you managing so many shows?

So that’s a great question, u/Fleurdetots. YouTube has been a fantastic partner for Game Lab. They have really been hands off in a lot of the creative process, which has been fantastic. They’ve really stepped aside and trusted me as a creator to make the show that I wanted to make. They’ll every once in awhile add a minor suggestion about things that aren’t clear to them, you know how to make this more understandable to maybe non-gamers (things like that), but for the most part 99.9% of what you’re seeing on the screen is stuff where I was there in the edit room making sure that every word was correct, every edit was right, so that’s very much my show.

And especially to YouTube’s credit when talking to them about how we could add value to you guys watching the show was that they agreed to allow all the VR / 360 episodes to be free to you guys, because they were so excited about how they turned out. We were all enthusiastic about exposing the Game Theorist audience to the possibility and potential of what 360 Video could do. Because there’s not a lot out right now and we spent a lot of time working on those and trying to create really interesting, different 360 experiences. So even though YouTube paid a lot of money to make those videos happen, much to their credit they understood that you guys are really eager to see this content and it’s a nice value add to you guys.

So I’m really excited that you’ll be able to see all those whether or not you’re a YouTube Red subscriber or you’re international, those are free on the channel for everyone to watch.

So how do I manage so many shows? Sometimes I don’t even know how I manage so many. A lot of thanks goes to Stephanie and Jason who are working with round the clock 7 days a week a lot of times to make sure the live streams are going up, that Film Theory and Game Theory is going up without a hitch, grips are happening. I have a fantastic team of writers and researchers that are always thinking of news ideas, always pitching me things and coming up with new angles to look at.

And so, we’re still a very small team. Stephanie, Jason, and I are working full time. Then we have people like Ronnie and Lee and Thomas, the editing team and Edward, who are working along the side to edit videos, research, write things for me. It is definitely a round the clock process. We’re working until 2 in the morning a lot of times and we’re working 7 days a week. But YouTube is worth the effort and you guys are worth the effort, because at the end of the day we know how enthusiastic you are for new videos, for new shows. So knowing at the end of the day it’s to give you more content, that you guys are eager for more, it just gives us fuel to keep working hard so there’s more for you guys to enjoy.

I know you have a Musical Theatre background so I want to know, have you listened to Hamilton? And are you excited for the Tony's?

Someone has been digging deep on my channel, so thank you very much for watching all those embarrassing old videos of me. I keep them up there because hey, I love looking at old channels and seeing how far creators come from. I'm glad you liked them! Yes! I have listened to Hamilton, it is fantastic! One of the most exciting shows that has hit broadway in recent years. Am I excited for the Tony Awards though? Almost, no. Because at this point, we can all just assume Hamilton sweeps every award and it'll probably win Best Play for that matter just because everyone loves the show that much. Obviously, I'm going to watch it, obviously I'm going to enjoy all the musical performances, but unlike years past, it just seems that this one is an obvious victory for Hamilton. So yes, I'm excited about the Tony Awards! But not in the same way I'm usually, where it's like who's gonna win, but rather just excited to see the cool performances. PLUS James Corden is hosting and he is FANTASTIC, karaoke in cars, top notch, he has a fantastic singing voice.

Hey, MatPat! Loyal theorist here!

How has your experience with your fans been? What's your favorite part about it? Also do you get recognized in the street?

First off, clap and a half to you loyal fan! Secondly, I would say to the question “Do I get recognized?” I would say yes. At this point yes. A lot of times they recognize my voice first and then they’re like, “Are you MatPat?”

Because up to this point I haven’t really shown my face all that often on the channel, so people tend to associate my voice with the show. So more often than not, I’ll have people be like “Oh, I heard your voice and I knew it was you!” It’s around like 3 times a week, which is incredible.

A lot of times it’s when I’m driving through McDonalds at 1 in the morning, hair all disheveled, me in my glasses and they’re like “Aren’t you that guy from Game Theory?” And I’m like “Yesss, sorry I don’t look good right now.” So yes, I definitely get recognized.

As far as interacting with fans goes, it’s the best. It’s one of my favorite parts of being part of a popular YouTube channel, it’s so easy to look at the big numbers on YouTube (the view counts and things like that) and lose sight that each of those numbers translate to two eyeballs sitting in front of a computer watching you, and so having moments like the Game Lab launch party earlier this week to going to VidCon to meeting friends at Gaming Conventions and hearing from you and seeing you guys first hand is so refreshing.

Because it reminds me why we’re doing this all the time, every day, for hours on hours on end. And it’s for you guys, it’s for the enthusiasm that you have for the show. It’s incredibly rewarding. And getting the chance to talk to you, hear your Theory suggestion and hear how the show has played into your life, just makes me feel so lucky.

Matthew Patrick, Legend amongst gamers and Philosopher of fictitious events, I beg to inquire you of something of truly utmost importance. It may seem perhaps trivial, but I must know nonetheless.

How do you keep your hair in such a beatific fashion at all given moments? It beseeches all explanation. I must know.

How do I keep my hair in such beautific fashion?? I just kind of wake up with it this way! Here's the big secret, day old grease, I don't shower enough, it's so embarrassing to say but nothing beats the natural pomade, the natural haircare product of my own body's grease.

And so you can usually tell on the days when I've showered because those are my worst hair days because it's all up in my face. The days I haven't showered, that's when you get the nice hair wall going. Ask me anything, no holds barred, truly I am Stank Pat, truly.

Hey Matt! I love both your shows, have watched every episode of both! So I have a few questions:

How do you decide what games to make theories of? Are the games/theories mostly viewer suggestion? How do you choose which ones are most pressing/important? What games to you plan to make theories of in the future?

Really love all your content, keep being great.

Oh also, do you know of other good YTRed shows, so I feel like I'm not just spending money on Game Lab?

So when it comes selecting what games to cover for Game Theory, a lot of it is based off of balance. Not just from the games that we're covering but also from the subject matter. I've mentioned it earlier from the AMA but one of the considerations I always have is balancing out the lore based conspiracy theories with ones that are more scientific or mathematics based.

So for every couple Snaff, Mario, and Minecraft episodes, where you're looking at the lore behind those games, you're balancing it out with a Chun-Lee helicopter legs episode or a Minecraft diamond armor cost episode. So that's one big consideration as I'm planning out the video calendar. The other part of it though is also making sure that I'm mixing up the game franchises that I'm covering, so obviously you guys are the most excited about Mario theories and Snaff theories but I want to cover more than just those games. So for every one or two of Mario or Snaff theories, I try to balance it out with a couple of ones from franchises you're either not quite as familiar with or more indie titles or ones that I'm just interested in at the time.

Life Is Strange, is a good recent example where we played it on GT Live. I love that game, I thought it was fascinating and I wanted to do a Theory about it, knowing that maybe it's not going to be as big as some of the other episodes that we would be doing. Same thing with Call of Duty, which isn't a big game for our community because we're much more kind of platformers and indie games but every once in a while, I want to explore that to see something interesting that I can call out from that franchise. So it's about balancing out, the videos that we're covering, the subject matter that we're covering, so that way it doesn't get boring for you and it's constantly exposing more games and more concepts to you guys. Because I can only harass Mario so many times before I get sick of it, let's be honest. There's only so many more Mario characters that I can cover, seriously! I gotta leave them alone sometimes.

Next part, so, when it comes to other YouTube Red shows, first off I would point you in the direction of Scare PewdiePie, where he's also recreating video game situations in real life, but his are more oriented to scare, rather than to educate. And if you look very closely at the haunted animatronic episode, you might see someone that you recognize, coughitmightbemecough. Oh, and Arin from the Game Grumps too, you'll probably recognize him more. So definitely check out Scare PewdiePie while in between episodes of Game Lab.

Also, if you haven't watched it, Laser Team from the Rooster Teeth team. That's another one that's definitely worth checking out. Has kind of a cool sci-fi feel to it; feels a lot like a lot of the stuff that our digital guys produced, but on a much, much grander scale. So if you're looking for other stuff to watch, definitely check those two out.

If you want to include Bad Internet also, it's one of the new shows that's slowly coming out, so I've only seen the first two episodes so far. But, everything from Collegehumor tends to be really good. They did this incredible episode about Amazon Prime that's really funny. So check out Bad Internet, too. As a fan of all things internet-y, and YouTube-y, I think you'll like it.

Which game theory or film theory episode was the most difficult to research?

You know, it's gotta be Five Minutes at Freddy's. It has to be. Like, they're all pretty difficult. Chun-Li's helicopter legs is a really good recent example, because we literally had to kind of teach ourselves helicopter physics, which, you know, is not teaching yourself rocket science, but it is teaching yourself helicopter science. Which is hard! And you want to make sure that you're doing it as right as possible, or as best as you can.

But that being said, no other franchise has the level of scrutiny as Five Nights at Freddy's, and the level of hype. People expect a lot from our theories. And so, at this point, it's everything from the number of fingers and toes on each of the animatronics across each of the games in the series--I can recite to you from memory, the number of fingers and toes on all of these robots from each installment; that's how deep we've gone with these episodes. And because there is such high expectation, because there is such fan scrutiny over those things, that's one that I always feel a lot of pressure on, and we spend literally weeks working on.

I kid you not, I have a whiteboard in our house at home right now with all sorts of marker marks on it, and like, yarn connecting different points of evidence, just like you would see in kind of like a crime scene investigation. That is how deep we've got with the FNAF series. So I'd say, outside of those heavy-duty science ones, from a lore perspective, FNAF. Hands down, hardest.

MatPat, I am a big fan of your channel.

My questions are a bit random but here:

Do you have any distinct childhood memories?

Did you ever expect that you would have a youtube channel that would become so big?

If you ever retire from YouTube in the future, what are your plans?

Finally, have you heard of the movie 'Suicide Squad' that will be coming out in August? And if you have, do you think there's a chance you might make a theory?

Random questions are the best questions, so thanks for sending them in.

I would say, random childhood memory? Actually a lot of them relate to video games. My first ever childhood memory is of my bedroom, which was Mario themed. I had lime-green walls...which may relate to the Game Theory colors!!! Oh my gosh! I just had a childhood revelation, here, right now, doing this AMA. It's all connecting together to my childhood!

But my earliest memory is of my Mario-themed bedroom. I also have a random memory of the day that we sold our house. I was maybe two or three years old at the time, but I distinctly remember playing Castlevania for the NES, the Frankenstein level, where Frankenstein is the boss. And I remember playing that game the day that we sold our house.

So those are two video game themed earliest childhood memories.

And if my YouTube channel would grow so big, never. I'm humbled to have found so many people who are so enthusiastic about overanalyzing things as much as I do. #nerdpride

And I have heard about Suicide Squad. I'm very excited about Suicide Squad. I am very nervous about Suicide Squad, and you can bet that I'll be looking for potential Theory material to talk about.

Hi MatPat! Love your videos. Would you rather fight 1 Wario sized duck or 100 duck sized Warios?

If we're assuming that Wario is 10 feet tall, which obviously he is based on that previous episode of Game Theory, then I would clearly fight one Wario-sized duck. Because, think about it! If you're fighting, what, a hundred duck-sized Warios, think of the amount of stink in that room. His superpower is literally farting to propel himself forward. Can you imagine the just awful stench of that room, between all the garlic he eats and all his farting?

No. Definitely not. One giant one. Done, easy. Boom. Bring it on! Got you.

Oh hey I'm here first!

MatPat - Any more Undertale coming?

EDIT: Also, film theory on how Captain America works for Hydra would be legit (comic spoiler sorry) EDIT2: Oh yeah, what games and movies are you most looking forwards to working on that aren't out yet?

Oh man, okay, Zak, I hear you're "da man", so, I better answer your question. Absolutely, there is more Undertale on the way. After the first theory that I did on Undertale, I was a little bit scared away. You know, the Ness is Sans one was a bit controversial, but it's definitely a franchise and a game that I love. It's one that I think there's plenty to theorize about, and you can expect to see something about Gaster coming up in the coming weeks.

Thanks for putting the spoiler after you have already asked the question, my friend! The idea that...so if I were to address Captain America working for Hydra, it's an interesting concept. But because Film Theory is more geared toward the cinematic universe rather than the comic universe, the only time that we would really address it is probably under the topic of, does Captain America work for Hydra in the movies themselves, rather than talking about it through the comic lens. So, that's the one time I would see us potentially working it into an actual video.

So, if it becomes a big plot point in the Marvel universe, absolutely we'll be talking about it! Or if it feeds into another theory, about whether Captain America is evil, you can absolutely count on that. But, you know, as far as just addressing it solely within the context of the comics, maybe not so much.

hey matpat, love your shows, what's your favorite grand theft auto game? also pineapple on pizza yay or nay?

First off, favorite Grand Theft Auto game? Five. Just because GTA5 builds on what had been established from all the other previous games, but just takes it to a whole new level. There is so much you can do. The recreation of Los Angeles as a city is so alive and vibrant, and the level of detail that Rockstar got to, from like the sound of your flip flops flip flopping when you walk to your car overheating...it's incredible!

So, definitely GTA5, by far my favorite. And as far as pineapple on pizza, that's the harder question here. I would say yay, but only partnered with Canadian bacon / ham.