Theory!
What is killing channels!?
Leave Pewds Alone!
WE KILLED YOUTUBE!
Bottle Flip…
Cheats?
Wut.
Hello Internet!
Welcome to a Game Theory video about Game
Theory?
If you’ve been around on the YouTubez for
the past few years, there has been one figure
that has been popping up left and right.
The master of a clap and a half, Matthew Patrick
has been all over the place in terms of decoding
game lore, pitting games physics against real
physics, and tackling the analytical side
of what makes YouTube tick.
Sounds like quite the challenge!
Now over the years, MatPat has analyzed many
other YouTubers and their channels, so I thought
I’d shed some light on the journey of MatPat.
What has been accomplished by team theorist
is no laughing matter, and if anything, is
pretty admirable.
However, there has definitely been a lot of
interesting changes that have happened over
the years, and good ol’ Swanky has been
analyzing away.
YouTube has always been a passion of mine,
and although I’m typically awful at taking
my own advice, it has been something that
has always been dear to my heart.
Along side that comes the many hours I spent
reverse engineering what it has to offer…
and I’ve been doing that for a very, very
long time.
My channel has always been a dumping ground
for my random ideas, but the truth is I come
from the world of search optimization and
the like, and actually have several family
members who specifically optimize things on
Google for a living.
Yeah, that’s a thing people do.
So before diving into this whole breakdown,
I thought it was important to share the reason
why.
MatPat was a big inspiration to me when I
was starting out, similar to how channels
like ExtraCredits inspired him.
However, being a fellow Ohioan who surprisingly
lived near him in close proximity, it was
twice as inspiring to discover his channel
while working at my day job.
Of course, I didn’t know it at the time,
but finding out later made it that much more
motivating when I took the YouTube plunge
myself.
Unfortunately, I ignored the call for a long
time, even though my first job back in 2009
was specifically about online video and search
rankings with YouTube.
Buuuuut that’s enough about me.
Let’s flip back over to the topic at hand:
The Game Theorists and MatPat.
Starting off, let’s turn back the clock.
Errr, maybe not that far back…
Definitely wasn’t watching that one at work.
MatPat’s channel growth was slow, but steady
since its initial inception.
Balancing applying for work, actually landing
work, consulting, and trying to research and
crank out videos is definitely taxing, but
it all ended up paying off in the end.
After breaking 50,000 subscribers in late
2012, it was less than a year later he found
himself sitting at the 500,000 mark - actually,
it was about ten months or so.
But this was only the beginning, because soon
after hitting this mark, the channel would
explode…
And truthfully, it had been on the verge of
exponentially exploding for about a year.
With the added push of trying to reach a million
subscribers, combined with some hard hitting
Nintendo favorites, The Game Theorists began
to rocket towards the heavens.
However, there’s an important factor about
why this all happened.
Of course, Matt has always analyzed everything
that goes into each and every one of his videos,
but there was a major shift that occurred
that really sparked a lot of things.
You might have even heard MatPat talk about
it himself.
Let’s cover a bit of history that led up
to this monumental change…
Into the time machine we go!
It’s 2009 and a young SwankyBox is sitting
at his desk at a Search Engine Optimization
company within the video / web design department.
Our goal was pretty much to convert viewers
to paying customers through video, and through
various landing pages.
A landing page is essentially a web page specifically
designed to be discovered while searching,
and it drives you to what people refer to
as a call to action.
A call to action is basically the goal of
the page - to convince you enough to do whatever
task they want you to do.
Whether that be clicking a button, filling
out a form, etc.
This was my life, and we consistently focused
on short videos that were designed to pop
up on search results.
During this period, Google pretty much always
showed 2 YouTube videos at the top of all
search results - so tailoring our videos to
specific search terms was pretty much a guaranteed
way to skip to the top of all results.
This was during a time period where 720P YouTube
video just became a thing, and 1080P would
hit later that year.
Prior to that, 480P was our good old friend
- which is pretty much abysmal to today’s
standards.
The buzz around the web was that your videos
had to be shorter than 2 minutes because no
one would watch them otherwise.
Drop off on video viewership was pretty abundant,
so everything was tailored to be short and
to the point.
Much like the livelihood of those who rely
on Google’s searching algorithm, any dramatic
change in YouTube’s algorithm rewrote the
entire system of how we operated…
And this is what I was getting at before.
The number of views and how short videos were
began to not really matter.
Snagging a view for the sake of a view was
no longer a thing after the dramatic changes
that occurred around February and March of
2012.
But, what does that all have to do with MatPat?
Well, although marketing trends were to make
shorter videos during the time, gaming videos
and more so educational videos were sort of
an outlier in that process.
Most people wouldn’t conform their videos
to fit into what was accepted in the “marketing”
space, because the call to action per say,
if you want to call it that, was simply was
for the person to enjoy what they watched,
and had nothing to do with taking information
or pushing towards a sale.
So when YouTube flipped a switch to change
view count rankings over to watch time…
MatPat was sitting on a goldmine.
He was already developing long form content
that got the community talking to one another,
and the huge backlog of videos began to draw
more people in once they discovered them.
And then FNAF happened, and the rest is history.
Kidding of course - it’s not that simple.
MatPat was already sitting on 30 videos of
long form, quality content when YouTube swapped
over its algorithm change.
Sure the video visuals may have not been the
best, but the topics covered were engaging.
Over the course of a year after that change,
his watch time began to build up and funnel
people to the channel as they searched for
their favorite games.
His later videos had already amassed 300,000
- 800,000 views each by mid 2013, and at this
point in the process new videos were receiving
about 300,000 views two weeks after the upload.
The stockpiled videos coupled with a few Nintendo
hits rocketed the channel to over a million
subscribers just three months after their
500,000 milestone.
Beyond that, ScrewAttack and GameTrailers
played major roles in continually spreading
awareness.
2014 came and from that point forward viewership
only improved exponentially.
He then dove into the world of the Film Theorists,
which I’ll touch on a tad later.
And then FNAF happened!
The end.
But at this point, things began to change.
Making long form, entertaining gaming content
surely brought in the views, but other than
being a YouTube hit, a lot of his other social
profiles suffered in comparison.
As content continued to evolve over the years
on YouTube in general, it became less about
the content and more about the personality.
Turn back the clock to 2009 and 2010 and people
were shouting “Content is King” from the
rooftops, but in the YouTuber space, personality
shined the brightest.
The rise of gaming Let’s Players during
this time surely influenced The Game Theorists
decisions on what they would be doing in the
future.
I mean, I watched Markiplier grow from the
small wee Amnesia reactor he was in the past,
to the giant he is today.
Of course he was pumping some FNAF steroids
during this time which brought in a lot of
viewership past 800,000 subscribers, but his
personality and honesty was the driving force
for a lot of people.
Things like this more than likely did not
go unnoticed to MatPat, who was spending tons
of time creating high quality content but
was being trumped by videos that could be
created in a half hour time slot.
A well-timed Let’s Play of a trendy game
killed it in the watch time category, and
in terms of return on investment, yielded
similar results in advertisement dollars.
Plus, even though Matt was energetic in his
videos, there was still a disconnect between
the viewer and him as a person.
With Markiplier or any other Let’s Player
- you felt emotionally invested in what they
were doing.
They felt like they were your best friend.
When you’re just a voice behind an animated
educational video - while the video is fun
to watch, you aren’t as invested in that
person.
You may tune in because the topic seems interesting,
but the topic is typically more important.
With a Let’s Player, personality was first
- and it excelled in all mediums.
It was very clear as well, because people
who were on camera in their rawest form crushed
it on all social platforms outside of YouTube.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram - you name it,
they exploded on it.
However, The Game Theorists, while they didn’t
do horrible - the numbers were not consistent.
It wasn’t very long ago that they had 150,000
- 300,000 Twitter followers - and while that
number sounds huge, it was definitely off
if you ran an analysis against similar sized
channels and their associated social followings.
Super passionate fans seek you out on other
platforms, and it is usually a decent way
to measure one’s reach as a social entity.
These factors are more than likely the reason
GTLive was born.
It offered a way to connect with fans that
Game Theory videos simply could not.
You got to meet the real Matt and Stephanie
without any filters, and it also satisfied
the long watch time Let’s Play genre, The
Game Theorists had been missing out on.
With Livestreaming released on YouTube it
was the perfect opportunity to branch out.
In terms of return on investment - Livestreaming
really pays off.
The more invested people become in you, and
the more they enjoy you as a person, the more
opportunities that will eventually come your
way.
Not only that, but these people who now have
a pure taste of your personality will seek
you out specifically in your videos that they
may have not felt connected with before.
It keeps you in their thoughts.
Plus, people love to see a happy couple.
It gives those who aren’t in a relationship
hope, and in some ways they can vicariously
experience it through GTLive.
Besides this, Film Theory was sorta born out
of a necessity as well.
It surely goes hand in hand with video games,
but it truly has a much bigger audience.
The reason I say that is think of how many
people play video games, who also watch Netflicks.
Who also go to the movies, and watch tv shows.
Yeah, that’s a great deal of us.
Now think of all the people who do those same
things, but who aren’t playing the newest
games - or games at all.
While the audience of Five Nights at Freddy’s,
Undertale, Hello Neighbor, and Bendy and the
Ink Machine is pretty large and pulls in tons
of views for The Game Theorists, it’s still
a drop in bucket in terms of the interests
of every human out there.
But, those people still come to YouTube and
search for the things they’re interested
in.
It’s the second most popular search engine
after all.
Whether it be that new movie trailer, or the
announcement of new episodes for their favorite
show, The Film Theorists are waiting to catch
their searches with open arms.
This is why the channel has grown so fast.
Sure it had the extra boost of MatPat already
having an audience, but the people converting
over to subscribers now are because he’s
connecting with an audience he may have been
missing before.
And he’s absolutely crushing it, as the
videos typically pop up on Trending all the
time.
YouTube wants to compete with TV now more
than ever, so videos like this are being put
into the spotlight.
It’s why Gaming isn’t as highlighted as
it was before, and why it was shoved off onto
that weird gaming.youtube sub site that not
too many people use.
It used to dominate the platform, but it made
people think YouTube was pretty much just
gaming.
The everyday person who may not play games
found it odd.
Now, don’t take this as The Game Theorists
fizzling out.
It still outperforms The Film Theorists, but
I believe in the long run the Film Theorists
may over shadow it.
It just reaches a much bigger audience across
the board that all ages can enjoy.
However, those who have been with The Game
Theorists for a long time also know that it
has changed dramatically.
For better or for worse, it evolved in order
to have to stay relevant.
This is why you no longer see videos on niche
topics or many games from the past.
Creating videos like this would forefeit search-ability
for the videos, so most of the videos are
tied to hot topics like all the exploding
indie titles, the newest games, and of course
fidget spinners.
Funny side note about that - While writing
this script I was on a walk right before that
video came out and I was thinking to myself
“Why hasn’t MatPat made a Fidget Spinner
video yet?”
When I got home, I refreshed my email, and
there it was.
Like a gift from the fidgety gods.
One of the most notable things for me was
how current videos are tagged.
Nowadays videos typically just buck shot game
names in hopes of casting a huge net.
Google Search and YouTube Search are entirely
two different beasts, and if you got the watch
time to pass around, it certainly can fuel
your video for some incredible reach.
It makes sense to do this now, since if your
video is going to receive tons of watch time,
it is going to saturate those tags heavily.
So when you’re watching that Let’s Play
on a Mario game and that newest Mario theory
pops up in your “next up” queue, that’s
because YouTube is thinking this video is
associated with that particular game topic
since it has millions of minutes of watch
time backing it up.
Along side this, there are channel names that
have popped up in the tags too.
If you’re making a video on Dark Souls,
accruing a ton of watch time and including
the tag vaatividya will probably make your
video pop up when people are searching for
his lore-based series.
On the flip side, Super Mario Logan will pull
some Mario plushie fans over your way as a
Mario Kart 8 theory may pop up as a recommended
video.
Strategy as a creator is always one of the
most important things, and that’s what MatPat
has always been good at.
Using analytics to shape the way your content
evolves, and to continually raise awareness
with each and every video that goes live.
If there is one thing we can all learn from
watching the Game Theorists grow, it’s certainly
that you must always be adaptable in what
you do (although, I totally have no idea if
these channel name tags fall in the realm
of misleading metadata - so certainly be careful).
Keep in mind what your audience wants, and
how you can continually improve on that.
Each and every time you release something,
it’s another step on your journey.
Phase out things that seem to conflict with
your audience unless they are a staple of
what you want to do.
I think that’s what is so neat about The
Game Theorists journey as creators.
For those who want to start creating today,
understanding the entire journey of people
we may look up to is certainly important.
Don’t let the end game of their results
eclipse the entirety of their adventure that
they took to get there.
Remember, the content creators of tomorrow
start at ground zero, so hopefully this look
back at the journey of the Game Theorists
was both insightful and motivating.
But hey, that’s just a theory.
A gaaaaaame theeeeeory… on how the Game
Theorists came to be.
Thanks for tuning in to this clap and a half
spectacle!
If you’d like to join me on my YouTube voyage
and continue to uncover the mysteries behind
your favorite games, then the subscribe button
is just what you’re looking for.
Thanks for watching guys and gals, and until
my next video, cheers!
If you liked this video, perhaps you’ll
enjoy some these.
There’s a slew of other theories on this
channel too, so regardless, I hope you enjoy!
