YMMV / Game Theory

• Accidental Innuendo: At the same time MatPat released a theory that Nurse Joy is a Pokémon, he also released a theory regarding edible Pokémon on the Food Theory channel. He even brings up eating Nurse Joy on the Food Theory, as a sort of cannibalism joke (due to the Nurse Joy theory bringing up the "humans are Pokémon" theory). However, fans read "eating Nurse Joy" as "eating out Nurse Joy"; "eating out" is a way to call oral sex.
• Awesome Music: "Science Blaster", the opening theme for the series that was made specifically for the show.
  • The remix might be even better.
  • In MatPat's final video as host of Game Theory, A Little Theorizing, another theme song for the show created by The Stupendium, a big fan of the channel and a GTLive guest star, plays to cap off his final moments as the host. The actual song is a nostalgic tribute to the channel's theories and the other side channels MatPat had created.
• Base-Breaking Character: While MatPat's decision to personify both Nugget and Monika in their respective games' theories was met with positive reception by fans, the reappearance of those characters in later theories that have nothing to do with them (Monika appearing in the Petscop video, and Nugget in the Duck Season video), has led to them becoming this.
• Bizarro Episode: The theory that Kirby's Epic Yarn was made to train kids to combat yarn-bombing is out there even by MatPat's standards.
• Broken Base:
  • The channel has a fairly large number of Five Nights at Freddy's videos (without counting livestreams), even more than Mario and Zelda theories. Either you love how much attention he gives to the series and the fans or you're sick of it and hate MatPat for pandering to FNAF fans so much.
    • Lampshaded in his YouTube Rewind/Facebook's 2015 Year in Review. Still doesn't solve the problem about having tons of FNAF videos, but at least he's aware that maybe he gave too much focus on Freddy and Pals.
  • MatPat's smug and quippy attitude in some of his videos has been a sore spot of contention. Some fans don't mind it or even find it hilarious, while others find his persona to be excessively narcissistic and egotistical, especially when he claims to know a game better than the creators working on them.
  • Some of his videos covering then recently released games are sponsored by game developers of said games (i.e. the Halo armor video is sponsored by Microsoft). Some fans have accused MatPat of having a conflict of interest and turning into a corporate Sell-Out. However, some fans don't mind that MatPat is making a quick buck from video game companies given his background as a Starving Artist struggling with depression and unemployment. Not helping matters is the fact that the "Is the MMO Genre Dying?" video has been accused of ignoring other successful forms of MMO monetization like Buy-to-Play, making it seem like an obvious pro-mobile gaming video and advertisement for sponsor Game of War.
  • Two other shows hosted on the channel, Game Drake's Crossover and Gaijin Goombah's Game Exchange, have garnered their fair share of contention. Crossover's attempts to link unrelated franchises is either amusing or as contrived as Game Theory's more infamous theories. Meanwhile Game Exchange is widely praised, studying the cultural influences, especially Japanese ones, in games, but it has also been criticized at times for defending games (notably Metroid: Other M) that aren't well liked outside of Japan, though this backlash may be due to Values Dissonance.
  • In 2016, MatPat announced he would host a new show, Game Lab, exclusive to the subscription-based YouTube Red. While many fans were excited since it focuses more on hard science instead of random fan theories, several were worried that MatPat's commitment to Game Lab would divert attention away from his Game Theorists and Film Theorists channels, possibly negatively impacting their quality.
  • MatPat's gamer-centric episode in which he gave Pope Francis a copy of Undertale. The fan reaction was polarizing to say the least; in general, most people applaud him for trying to show a more positive side to gaming culture and for advocating the use of games to espouse empathy among people. Some are skeptical about MatPat's claims and feel that his references to then-recent tragedies was untimely and inappropriate regardless of his intent. Others just thought that the video sounded really pretentious. It should be noted though that his idea of using games to help improve society and promote empathy isn't without precedent, shared by many other intellectuals like game designers Jane Mcgonigal and James Portnow.
  • His third Undertale theory, not so much for the theory itself, but rather for the part of the video where he discusses the negative reception of the first two Undertale videos. Some people feel bad for him, agreeing that the backlash was unwarranted and went too far, while others argue that he deserved the criticisms for releasing unsatisfactory videos, and his attempt at justifying them screams of Never My Fault and emotional manipulation.
  • His second Petscop theory, not because of the theory itself, but because of the video, which exhibits intentional audio glitches, eerie edits, and an overall uneasy tone. Some praised the video to be among Game Theory's best edited, creating an atmosphere that meshes with the topic's horror and mystery elements perfectly, while others felt that it was actually too effective, scaring them to the point that they couldn't even finish the video.
  • In general, the argument that each video's point is that "it's just a theory", and that they are ultimately supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. On one hand, some agree that the theories are only really for entertainment, aren't really being asserted as truth, and that the detractors are taking things too seriously; on the other hand, detractors believe this is essentially using the fan theory equivalent of It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars to excuse poor research and questionable sourcing (or lack thereof).
• Captain Obvious Aesop: Played for Laughs at the end of his Leap of Faith video:
  MatPat: So in the end, what have we learned today? Don't jump off of buildings. You will die.
• Critical Backlash: During the first half of MatPat's tenure as the host, Game Theory built up a significant amount of criticism, with him taking the brunt of it as the face of the channel. However, the second half of his tenure would see many YouTubers getting into massive scandals left and right for legitimately serious reasons, and so potshots aimed directly at MatPat would increasingly be met with defense of him, even from people who disliked his actual videos. Even MatPat's past controversies have been reexamined in his favor, though they still garner potshots, particularly the 'Sans is Ness' theory. Still, this is probably why the announcement of his retirement in 2024 was met with respect across the Internet, even from his critics.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The portrayal of Nugget by MatPat's wife Stephanie during their playthrough of the game proved to be quite a hit with fans, leading to Nugget appearing in a number of other videos and even the official channel banner.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Part of the infamy surrounding Game Theory among many circles is due to this, in large part due to his more younger audience touting his various theories, particularly the more infamous ones such as Mario being a psycho, as fact. This is despite even MatPat himself claiming, at the end of every video, that it's just a theory.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Gnoggin, a similar show on YouTube, to the point where flame wars have broken out in the comments of videos on both sides. It doesn't help that Gnoggin has made at least three videos specifically to discredit MatPat's theories, and several people treat Gnoggin as the "Let's talk smack about Game Theory" channel. There's also the allegations that the Game Theory about Smash Bros. being about Masahiro Sakurai's disillusionment with the series and the games industry in general is directly ripping off Gnoggin's theory about Super Smash Brothers being about living with autism. Another point of contention is MatPat doing an amiibo theory one week after Gnoggin, with the exact same theory.
  • There was a significant one with the Undertale and Deltarune fanbase for nearly a decade. Initially, this was due to many of his early Undertale theories receiving large amounts of vitriol from the Undertale fanbase, as well as the Pope Francis incident. However, it reached new heights in 2019 when Toby Fox publicly admonished MatPat for falsely advertising Heartbound in a Let's Play as being connected to Undertale and not properly linking to it in his video descriptions. Despite Toby only lightly criticizing MatPat, with the latter apologizing, this incident was blown up by the community as being bigger than it was, and was cited as evidence of bad blood between Toby and MatPat. Not helping was the fact that not a single Undertale or Deltarune theory was made after this, even after the widely-anticipated release of Chapter 2 of Deltarune in 2021, with this being cited as bad blood too (even though this was more likely due to the aforementioned vitriol that his past UT/DR theory videos got). This was only truly quelled in 2024 when, in response to the news of MatPat's retirement, Toby publicly thanked him for his videos with art of Sans and Papyrus in Ness outfits (and MatPat subsequently returned to Deltarune for one last theory as part of his final ten), confirming that no bad blood existed between them.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • All the jokes mocking MatPat's infamous "Sans is Ness" and (to a lesser extent) "Why I Gave the Pope Undertale" videos become this when MatPat addresses in "Who Is Gaster?" that the hate and ridicule he got from those videos had really cut him deep.
  • In his "Why I Gave The Pope Undertale" video, he explained that the main reason why he gave Pope Francis Undertale was that gamers are getting unjustifiably bad press and that Undertale would show the gaming community in a more positive light. Almost a month later, Pope Francis gave an address on World Youth Day in Krakow, where at one point he speaks against confusing happiness with comfort, which he likened to a sofa, even saying "A sofa that promises us hours of comfort so we can escape to the world of videogames and spend all kinds of time in front of a computer screen" as an example of this kind of escapism. Instead, he exhorts the youth to take on a more active role in following Jesus, saying that it "demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths". Depending on how Pope Francis's remarks are interpreted, it could be a condemnation of video games altogether, in which case means that he could not disagree more with MatPat (or Hilarious in Hindsight, depending on how seriously you look at it), or it could be a condemnation of escapism and not video games per se (especially considering that Pope John Paul II blessed the Pokémon franchise.)
  • MatPat's jokes about his treatment of his editor Ronnie, often comparing it to slave labor, becomes much harder to watch after Ronnie died by suicide.
  • Mat was one of the many people who thought Hello Neighbor would be the next FNAF, and spent several videos before its release trying to determine the theme and plot in advance, the entire time demonstrating how excited he was for the game to be released. Upon its actual release however, he suffered Hype Backlash and was so irritated by the gameplay mechanics, that his next and penultimate theory on the game was about proving how the physics of the boxes don't work, just to get some catharsis out of how much he disliked the released product, and for his last video on the game as part of his final ten theories, he makes it clear from the start that he still doesn't really like the game and he's only covering it again to give closure to an infamous tweet by TinyBuild insisting he should analyze their trailer frame-by-frame.
  • Mat's speech about a friend he knew back in choir who he stopped from completing a suicide attempt becomes far sadder when Ronnie died by suicide later that year, with MatPat releasing a video in late July talking about Ronnie.
  • When the Bestower Saga of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent was released in the West, Mat decided to do the typical Ron the Death Eater theory. While he first tried to do it on The Chosen One, he came to realize that they have no choice in the matter and changed it so the theory would be that Aelfric is an egotistical jerk. And then Bestower of All shows someone (Sazantos) not only reaching the same conclusion, but trying to create a world where none of the bad things that happened throughout the game happened to show the people that Aelfric doesn't give a fuck about them. And since Champions of the Continent is a prequel, Aelfric forces you to stop him...
  • In his second Ruin theory, he makes a theory that the then unreleased Help Wanted 2 would have Cassie's dad as the protagonist, and he also suggests that maybe they'll reunite in the ending. Come the full game and, if you still believe the protagonist is Cassie's dad, they do reunite in an ending... where the player gets their consciousness trapped inside the Mask Bot that gave Cassie her mask.
  • In his theory covering the Editor Wilbur ARG back in 2021, Mat had the thumbnail of the video have the caption as "Face of a Killer?", and posited in the video that Wilbur was an unstable killer responsible for attempting to kill the editor Kai for threatening to reveal he murdered a woman. In 2024, many were quick to find the video aged like milk, as creator and focal figure of the ARG Wilbur Soot would face accusations of being abusive to his ex-girlfriend Shelby Grace/"Shubble", with many more coming forward with their own accusations, one even accusing him of sexual assaulting them, Wilbur even admitting to some of the accusations even if trying to downplay the severity of them. This resulted in Wilbur being blacklisted from the QSMP, many of his Comedic Sociopathy moments being taken in a much harsher light, and GT fans noting that Mat's theory was very accurate to Wilbur now, just replace "Killer" with "Abuser".
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: His constant jabs at Nintendo prior to 2017, the Wii U, and some of their franchises (Mario in particular) is known to really rile up Nintendo fans, especially ones who outright detest the Game Theory fandom for acting like MatPat's theories are 100% fact (when they're not supposed to be).
  • Mat and Stephanie's Let'sPlay video of the Little Nightmares 2 demo that was sent to them by Bandai Namco garnered a noticeable amount of controversy. Mat and Stephanie complained about the demo's difficulty curve under the false impression that they were playing from the beginning, though the demo was set over halfway through the game, spent the entire video talking over the game and nitpicking it, missing obvious gameplay cues like Six's gestures or the Patients' gameplay mechanics, struggling with puzzles that most other players overcame in a heartbeat, playing in a brightly lit setting that meant they failed to immerse themselves in the game, revealing they never played the Little Nightmares DLC, which was over half the original game's content, and making their general disinterest for the game very clear. The top comments (and most other comments) are filled with people criticizing the video and pointing out that even the harshest of critics had enjoyed the demo far more than they did. Their Cowboy Be Bop At His Computer attitude throughout the video was ridiculed, and the video to this day is considered one of the worst of the Game Theory brand, many considering it too cringy to rewatch.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Polybius video from 2012 has a graphic of The Angry Video Game Nerd getting bombarded by lights and messages from a Polybius cabinet. For Halloween 2017, the AVGN decided to make a special 150th episode...
  • When talking about the announcement of Ultimate Custom Night in the "FNAF STUMPED ME" video, MatPat remarks that it "Might be time for Markiplier to give up his FNAF crown". Once the game came out, Markiplier actually did eventually give up on beating 50/20 mode.
  • Game Theory's episode about a crossover between the movie and TV sides of The DCU came true when Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) had almost every live-action DC character make an appearance, including the DCEU Flash who meets his Arrowverse counterpart in Hour Four.
  • In "Spiderman is a CRIMINAL! (Spider Man PS4)", Pat imagines that MCU!J Jonah Jameson would be a lot like Alex Jones, shouting conspiracy theorists while hawking his own brand of protein-powder. Wouldn't you know it, the Daily Bugle in Spider-Man: Far From Home is presented as a deliberate Expy to InfoWars.
  • A theory of his on Animal Crossing is that the player character has a mental condition that allows him to see other people as anthropomorphic animals. In Odd Taxi, this turns out to be the case with the protagonist.
  • Five and a half years after the infamous Pope video was posted, Megalovania was actually played for him in a general audience in early 2022.
  • The Five Nights at Freddy's theory of Gregory being a robot can be read as an unintentional prediction of the ending of Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach's Ruin DLC, where it's revealed the "Gregory" Cassie had been trying to rescue all game is an animatronic pretending to be him.
  • All of MatPat's Five Nights at Freddy's theories became this when he became a Promoted Fanboy by appearing in the movie.
  • In his first Poppy Playtime theory, he theorized that that the antagonist of the second chapter would be Catbee. While that theory would be debunked (Chapter 2's antagonist was Mommy Long Legs, a previously unmentioned character), the 3rd chapter would produce a cat antagonist in the form of CatNap.
  • In his episode entitled "Fortnite's SECRET Plan to Control Disney!", MatPat details how Epic Games became as powerful as it is through licensing the Unreal Engine to anyone who wishes to use it, including Disney. On February 7th, 2023, Disney announced that they invested 1.5 billion dollars to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games, meaning that Disney now controls Fortnite.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: As Game Theory is considered one of the most popular non-"Let's Play" channels (with 17 million+ subscribers), it's natural that some will hate MatPat for his overexposure. Among all his videos, his Mario and FNAF ones are among the highest viewed yet also the most polarizing, with some viewers criticizing these videos for having too many research errors and relying too much on hackneyed guesses instead of hard science and history.
• It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: MatPat ends each episode by claiming that it's "just a theory", and some have interpreted this as meaning that his theories should be exempt from critique, and any "debunking" responses are taking it too seriously. In the scientific world, MatPat's "theories" (which are actually closer to hypotheses than theories) would naturally undergo lots of peer review, so saying it's "just a theory" to ward off criticism would be completely missing the point. For his part, Mat has said that he says this as a reminder that the series is mostly some fun food for thought and his opinion is just one of many, so it should be taken with a grain of salt (No Pun Intended).
• Memetic Badass: Despite being widely mocked when it first happened, it's since become common to semi-jokingly lionize MatPat for giving Pope Francis a copy of Undertale, due the game's LGBT representation and some of the pro-LGBT policies that the Catholic Church has since adopted, with many joking that MatPat single-handedly pushed the Catholic Church in a (slightly more) pro-LGBT direction. The fact that Megalovania was officially played for the Pope live in 2022, possibly as a reference to this event, only adds more fuel to the fire.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "But hey, that's just a theory, a GAME THEORY!"^ExplanationIf someone makes a theory about something (even serious ones occasionally), you can expect to hear the show's iconic send-off phrase tacked on right after, usually swapping out 'Game' for the subject matter. Often it's meant as a jab at the series, but that's just a theory, a MEME THEORY!
  • Sans is Ness^ExplanationMuch mockery was made of the infamous "Sans's SECRET Identity!" episode following its release, due to its bizarre conclusion taken from what little evidence the show could come up with. Colloquially referred to as the "Sans is Ness" episode, many joke theories about characters somehow secretly being other characters from completely different franchises have come forth since, often taking the form of 'X is Y'.
    • Sens^ExplanationA name used to refer to Sans and Ness as a Composite Character after the episode.
    • SiIvaGunner is one of the more notable spreaders of the meme with Sens appearing as an actual character, along with numerous other references.
    • Even Scott Cawthon got in on the fun. In Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), MatPat cameos as a waiter named Ness.
    • The meme was officially acknowledged by Toby Fox himself in 2024, who drew Sans and Papyrus both dressed as Ness in recognition of MatPat's retirement.
  • "Why I Gave the Pope Undertale" ^ExplanationAfter MatPat infamously gave The Pope a copy of Undertale, the internet was awash in people parodying and lampooning the event due to the absurdity of the situation.
    • On January 5th, 2022, "Megalovania" was actually played in front of the Pope. This led to jokes about the Pope having actually played the copy MatPat gave him.
  • I JUST SIMULTANEOUSLY WHIPPED AND NAE NAE'D!! ^ExplanationMatPat excitedly yelling about doing, at the same time, two dances featured in the Silento song "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)".
  • "MatPat in shambles rn"^ExplanationWhenever a new piece of lore is revealed for a property that's had extensive analysis by the show (not limited to but especially the case for Five Nights at Freddy's), expect comments about MatPat's inevitable frustration/rage to be made.
  • Mental Illness!^ExplanationA cropped thumbnail◊ from a charity livestream◊ featuring a strangely-smiling MatPat and several other YouTubers, including IISuperwomanII and the TheOdd1sOut. It's occasionally used to mock MatPat, but is more commonly used online as a reaction image whenever a major Internet celebrity or subculture does something perceived as stupid or narcissistic.
  • Music Man!^ExplanationMatPat predicted the likelihood of Music Man returning when he saw a multi-legged animatronic teased in the third episode of Freddy & Friends: On Tour! His left field prediction was proven correct when he saw a giant Music Man in the final trailer for the game, shouting his name in excitement. MatPat would later react to a well-made Voice Clip Song of this meme.
  • LOOOOOOOOOORE! ^Explanation MatPat's very excited reaction to, well, lore.
  • MatPat out of context ^ExplanationIn 2023, people started posting clips of MatPat that are carefully clipped to induce Mood Whiplash. The clips start with Mat discussing a usually real-world subject, and ends as soon as he brings up the subject of the theory again, which in the context of the clip comes out of nowhere.
  • "guys, I have a theory"^ExplanationVideos that apply Fanon Welding to similar-looking characters from different media while a cover of the GT theme plays. While having existed before the announcement, the format seems to have grown in popularity with news of MatPat's impending retirement.
• Narm: It's kind of hard to take the "Mario is Mental" theory seriously when Matt grimly talks about Mario being an unfeeling sociopath while the video constantly cuts to Mario grinding Luigi's shoe in as both brothers awkwardly grin like it's the worst thing ever. The fact that MatPat would later admit in two separate videos that it was one of two starting points to his theory, appears to justify why he seems to keep coming back to this one shot.
• Nausea Fuel: Some episodes, some as Why Star Fox has NO LEGS and BEWARE Link's Hookshot! contain very detailed studies of real-life human anatomy.
• Older Than They Think: MatPat did not create a number of the theories, he simply put them in video form. Ones such as "Cloud accidentally killed Aerith" or "Rosalina is related to Peach" (though not the part about Luigi being Rosalina's father) have been floating around for years. This brings even more fuel to the fire that is the Game Theory and Gnoggin Fandom Rivalry, since Lockstin in the past made videos on theories that didn't originate from him and has given credit to where it's due (Jar Jar Binks Sith theory) or flat out admit a theory idea isn't his own (Bowser is dead and possessed theory).
• Seasonal Rot: The sentiment among older fans is that Mat's newer theories (especially the ones that have to do with lore instead of math and science) have increasingly become more flimsy and farfetched, prone to being easily debunked due to cherry-picked facts and/or rushed research, and seemingly made for the sake of getting attention or a personal gripe, rather than coming to an actually plausible conclusion with the episode's theory. Usually cited as the worst:
  • The "Mario is Mental" videos, for using anything (even minor things) as proof that Mario is a cruel sociopath.
    • The "Luigi's Secret Identity" video, while not as infamous, is also disliked by fans for implying that Matt is a Trolling Creator and that he's making the theories just to piss off Mario fans (a massive indicator is that the Luigi theory goes against the "Mario is Mental" videos, where he's on Luigi's side).
  • The FNaF4 video for flat out accusing Scott of making the game wrong, on the account of believing that brain damage causes a narrow set of symptoms. This is to the point that Scott himself commented on the video by politely saying that the theory was wrong.
  • Are MMOs Dying for being an obvious ad for a mobile game, taking the idea of a sponsored video to a whole new level and ignoring actual successful and current MMOs.
  • The Undertale Sequel to EarthBound Theory. To keep it brief, Mat ignores the lore of both Undertale and EarthBound, makes stretches far beyond logical, and he cites an old ROM hack that Toby made during his teenage years that he considers a total Old Shame.
  • The For Honor video. MatPat makes several mistakes that could have been avoided by simply googling, like saying that greaves are worn on arms, that vikings lived in a frozen wasteland, or that vikings went into battle "practically nude." He even contradicts himself when he says that vikings can't counter arrows...despite him mentioning earlier in the video that vikings had shields.
  • The World of Light theory (specifically the portion explaining that Galeem is a metaphor for an undisclosed creative dispute between Satoru Iwata and Masahiro Sakurai that paints Iwata in the wrong), due to being accused of demonizing the deceased Iwata through flimsy logic.
• Squick: MatPat believes that both the "mental" theory and the "timeline" theory hold up; in other words, even though Jumpman is clearly stated in the latter theory to be Mario's father, Mario is still a dangerous sociopath and man whore] What he fails to realize is this: if Jumpman is Mario's father, and Mario is potentially seeing Pauline on the side, it implies he committed patricide to have intercourse with his own mother.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In his "Who would survive?" (which was about the COVID-19 Pandemic), many thought it would have been cool to see him talk about how certain characters' powers, abilities and equipment would help them out against the virus. For example, how the Mario characters would be able to handle it very well since many of them are doctors and have really good medicine, or how characters with advanced technology like Dr. Eggman could use that to protect themselves. Instead, he only talks about if certain characters would be able to wear a mask to protect themselves, saying that Mario and Eggman would be at risk solely for their facial hair, and even that a mask wouldn't be able to fit on Master Chief while ignoring the fact he already wears a full suit of futuristic armor and would most likely be completely protected from the virus because of it.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The Subnautica video - which contained a number of glaring inaccuracies directly contradicted by the games themselves, starting the assertion that the player deliberately landed on 4645B (the Aurora was shot down, and was far from the first ship to do so without incurring any of the ecosystem destroying side effects Matpat describes). A number of fans observed that it seemed to exist more for the sake of pushing Team Seas, an initiative to clean up real world oceans, than to actually study Subnautica's lore.
• Win Back the Crowd: MatPat's more in depth and researched theories, especially his Minecraft lore theories, have been much more warmly received for being well backed by evidence and intriguing.

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