day 23 I continue to live amongst the
Packman undetected to them I am
invisible just another hungry yellow orb
with black eyes another jaundiced
splotch built for one purpose to consume
I liked it here I feel at home at peace
this is my sister from another mister a
family from another arcade cabinet this
is yellow Kirby undercover over and out
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hello Internet welcome to game theory
the show that can't wait to dedicate an
episode to why the Parana plan has feeds
I mean seriously a Nintendo what what is
this but not only are we the show
dedicated to exploring anatomical
anomalies of predatory plant life today
a new challenger has entered the ring
baby and it is us the new challenger is
entering the ring just in time for the
release of super smash brothers ultimate
right now today new theory where has
entered the ring just in time for the
holidays we're calling it holidays in
the hood because it's cold outside so we
wanted to keep everyone cozy warm by
attaching a hood to literally everything
you want a long-sleeve t-shirt great
make it better with the hood you want a
reversible jacket awesome idea but throw
a reversible hood on that how about a
sleek sweater dress for all you gals
boom hoodie dress game theory and film
theory socks well we all know that socks
are just hoods for your feet this game
theory ski cap hood on-the-go even this
film theory hoodie has a hood which
would be ironic if it didn't puss on
hoods on hoods on hoods boo inception
something giving one of those moments
were like to say a word so many times
and it just loses all meaning but don't
leave the rest of your body out in the
cold what's better in the winter than
curling up on a cold night with a cup of
hot chocolate some video games and being
all snuggly warm in your game theory
pajama pants ladies and gentlemen we
have reached the altitude of peak
comfort to wrap yourself in a big old
cocoon of warm theory goodness this
holiday season whether you want to look
hot out in the cold or just bundle up
and disappear into your own personal
hood and wonderland theory where as you
literally covered you know where the
links are down in the description below
and if you order in the next few weeks
it is guaranteed to arrive before
Christmas because remember there's no
gift like hoods for the holiday
in the last Super Smash Brothers episode
I asked you to take a survey covering
your favorite Bros and sis's from the
franchise and over half a million of you
responded five hundred and fifty one
thousand five hundred and thirteen total
responses to be exact thereby making
that survey and this episode the single
biggest data set that we've ever dealt
with on this channel do you know how
jealous normal researchers would be of
us they would kill to get this sort of
sample size but don't worry I've got my
star rod and I'm ready to keep them at
bay no no you don't this is my
incredible audience data and you can't
touch it bad researcher no throw my star
rod at you so the question I needed you
to help me answer was the psychology of
Super Smash Brothers Ultimates it was my
hypothesis that this game could be used
as a personality assessment of sorts
that the character you choose to play as
could serve as a reflection of what
makes you you are beauty gurus more
likely to be drawn to pink characters or
Eastern Europeans attracted to the
Gothic stylings of the Castlevania clan
are fans of travel videos more likely to
pick characters that are popular
overseas with so many different
characters in this one game it didn't
seem like that much of a stretch to me
there's truly one character for every
sort of player and free personality type
every personal preference every play
style regardless of whether you're
newcomer or a die-hard veteran of the
series so I wanted to put that
hypothesis to the test with the help of
half a million of you as well as some of
my YouTube friends so what does your
favorite Super Smash Brothers ultimate
character say about you that is what I'm
about to explore today so crank those
stocks up to three and keep an eye out
for falling beam swords because it's
time
smash your way through a lot of data oh
so much data first let's get ourselves a
lay of the land
oh the survey participants about two
hundred and fifty five thousand were
guys one hundred and twenty-five
thousand were repping for the ladies
eighty six thousand of you reported that
you are non-binary meeting that you're
not exclusively masculine or feminine
and another eighty six thousand
preferred not to say and this question
actually became important right off the
homerun bass for as much as we all like
to think that we've broken down gender
stereotypes in 2018 a few things do seem
to remain true the first being that
girls apparently still really like to
play as princesses that's right when
asked who you anticipate playing as in
Super Smash Brothers ultimate females
were three times more likely than boys
to choose strong female mainstays like
Zelda or peach as well as newcomer Daisy
but when it comes to female role models
apparently no one can topple Rosalina
who was over six times more popular with
girls than she was with boys in fact
Rosalina was so popular with females
that they chose her nearly twice as
frequently as most any other character I
mean I get it if I had my druthers I'd
probably choose to be a princess of the
stars with powers over time it's based
to females were two and a half times
more likely to pick a female fighter
than they were a male Wanda and well
that might not seem too surprising what
is shocking is that the female bias
didn't apply to characters like samus
she and Wii Fit trainer so interpreting
these results I would guess that it's a
matter of looks samus in her regular
suit was in the bottom tier for girls
Sam is in her zero suit on the other
hand was one of the top and it's not
because she's one of the overall best
characters from previous games either
that's what I initially thought myself
but then I sliced up the data to show
only females who reported that they
would be first time players with Super
Smash Brothers ultimate and zero suit
samus still was in the top tier which
leads me to believe that the
differentiating factor here are
characters who looked quote-unquote
traditionally feminine versus those who
don't zero suit samus obviously
traditionally feminine samisen are
normal space suit not so much she
disguised as a boy Wii Fit trainer
creepy fitness avatar who attacks you
with hoops so then by extension that
merits the question are guys more likely
to pick fellow dude bros surprisingly no
I mean sure characters like snake are
much more popular with boys than other
genders but according to the data what
guys are really after are monsters
Ridley is two-and-a-half times more
popular for guys than he is for girls
but the big surprise to me at least was
king K rool who took the top guys spot
overall at nearly 5% of all male
respondents being excited to get their
hands on that crown now to ensure that
this wasn't just because Ridley and K
rool were new characters I sliced out
all the veterans of the super smash
brothers series and still these two
persisted just going to prove the
classic phrase boys will be boys unless
they can be scary reptile monsters in
which case they will absolutely choose
to be scary reptile monsters so we
definitely see some things falling into
classic gender lines but it gets really
interesting when we looked at the group
of you who self-identified as non-binary
where male and female identifiers had
clear winners and losers people outside
of these genders had a much more diverse
set of choices it really is fair to say
that non-binary players seem to
discriminate less try more characters
and have fewer attachments to specific
types of characters to prove this
I turned to standard deviation so when
you're looking at a lot of data points
standard deviation is the measure of how
spread out the numbers in that data set
are for instance if you're looking at
this height chart of Mario characters
you have some characters like Bowser and
Petey piranha who are huge and others
like shy guys and toads who are super
short it's a broad spectrum and as a
result you have yourself a pretty large
standard deviation by contrast character
heights in the Super Smash Brothers
series have to have a smaller standard
deviation since they're all fighting on
the same playing field I mean if the
means have taught me anything that was
the reason that took so long for ridley
to join the roster in the first place
the fear that he was just always too big
for the stages and other fighters so
when looking at character
in Super Smash Brothers ultimate the
male and female standard deviation was
twice as large as the non-binary
standard deviation meaning that males
and females had a much more extreme
difference between their favorite and
least paper characters there was less of
a middle ground when looking at earlier
games in the franchise it was even more
extreme six times larger the same held
true for those who preferred not to
reveal their gender a standard deviation
much less extreme than those who
identified as either strongly male or
strongly female but we didn't just look
at gender the whole time your country's
local culture also seems to play a huge
role in who you choose to play as for
instance see if you can figure this one
out
Mexico Spain Portugal Brazil Chile were
taco Italy and France all had a much
higher than average number of players
eager to assume the role of Simon and
Richter Belmont the new editions from
the Castlevania series two to four times
as likely to pick those characters
relative to the rest of the world in
fact can you think of why this would be
like the coolest SAT question ever my
hypothesis is that it's because these
countries in particular tend to all be
very religious and not just with any
religion but Catholicism specifically
Italy is home to the Catholic Church
France is often called the second
daughter of the Catholic Church and
Spain is 70% Catholic the country's
history steeped in the series of
religious struggles between Catholics
and Muslims and that religiosity carries
during the culture of most other Spanish
and Portuguese speaking countries like
Mexico Portugal and Puerto Rico so it
would make sense that characters from a
game franchise all about crosses and
holy water and battles against demons
and spirits would resonate more strongly
in those territories you know what other
character is surprisingly popular in
Spain and France Isabelle from Animal
Crossing is it just because these
countries are more enthusiastic about
catching fish to work their way out of
crystalline debt to a thrifty raccoon I
don't think so Isabelle and Isabella are
classic French and Spanish names the
equivalent of our Elizabeth and English
names that belonged to multiple queens
in both countries including Isabella
Castile in Spain who sponsored the
explorations of Christopher Columbus and
one of the most notorious women in
English history Isabella of France who
led
invasion of England that ultimately
resulted in the deposition of her
husband Edward the second and pause
right there you see after I finished
writing this episode I found out that
this part of the theory is probably
wrong because Isabel's name is different
in both Spain and France in Spanish it's
Cannella and in France it's Marie so
yeah the whole name Theory probably
wrong in this case wouldn't be the first
time one of my theories are wrong and
now back to your regularly scheduled
potentially less wrong theory once again
we see that it's all about
representation seeing a reflection of
yourself in a character whether that be
in the form of a gender cultural history
or simply your names
picking up interesting Geographic trends
consider pac-man it seems random but
he's actually three times more likely to
be chosen in the countries of India and
Romania which warrants the question what
do those two countries have in common
that could also contribute to our
favorite yellow muncher chewing up the
competition well my theory my game yeah
you get the point is that it's related
to these countries internet usage you
see both of these are countries where
Internet connectivity is on the rise but
slowly of of this most people play games
on their mobile phones and that means a
focus on classic titles like the fighter
formerly known as puck man and that's
not all studies have also concluded that
in India quick thinking or reflex driven
games like pac-man are also particularly
popular with 22% of the total population
playing those sorts of titles so with
limited game availability within the
boundaries of the country you see you in
the direction of familiarity ie one last
regional trend that I can't actually
quite figure out and I'd love to hear
your theories on greninja he was the
number three pick in the Philippines the
number two pick in Singapore at the
number one pick overall in India three
to five times more likely to be selected
in those countries relative to any other
in the world why would a ninja Pokemon
be so much more popular there especially
when you consider that Nintendo doesn't
even have an official presence in India
and the anime is really
only way the countries experience the
Pokemon franchise give me your thoughts
I seriously could not figure this one
out
and finally you didn't just look at
demographics the last big part of the
survey was to break down how online
creators and online viewers play the
Super Smash Brothers games do
educational creators play the smartest
characters like fire emblems Robin our
food channels more likely to pick Kirby
for his voracious appetites our vloggers
picking greninja because he looks like
he's dabbing on them hater is half the
time well exactly beauty gurus who took
the survey showed an even more
pronounced version of the female
preferences that we talked about earlier
heavily favoring characters that were
women pretty or cute by a factor of two
to one with Daisy and Bayonetta as their
top tier choices but Jigglypuff and
Pichu also having a strong showing and
if Pichu is being chosen you know it's
got to be because he's cute because it
is definitely not for strategic purposes
meanwhile the beauty gurus definitely
stayed away from the quote-unquote ugly
characters as they were the only group
of all the groups questioned to really
not want to play a skink a rule or
ridley about 75 percent less likely to
pick either of those characters
meanwhile creators who do travel content
also yielded some surprising results
though they weren't all Fire Emblem
characters like I expected they were the
only category to actively pick playing
as Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong it's
actually surprising for as popular as
King K rool is don't hand it he just
aren't for some reason looking at the
data he's been dating all the way back
to the original Super Smash Brothers for
the Nintendo 64 and super smash brothers
melee DK has always been rounding out
the bottom of character lists since the
beginning coming in dead last or at the
very least bottom 10% of selections for
all the games that we asked about maybe
gamers just have a thing against high
form
accurately my theory maybe these
characters appeal to older players you
see travel content tends to attract
older creators and viewers older because
they have much more money to spend on
things like plane tickets hotels
international experiences as such they
would be much more likely to gravitate
to some classic arcade favorites like
Donkey Kong in this case being three
times more likely to choose this member
of the Kong family supporting this
hypothesis is the fact that travel
creators also skewed more towards duck
hunt dog hit and Rob all classic
characters while under picking more
modern game characters like Inklings and
greninja
they were also twice as likely to pick
Wii Fit trainer so yeah like I said
older audience and finally for all of us
self-identified gaming creators our
picks coincided with our experience and
franchise the longer we've been playing
the Super Smash Brothers series the more
likely we were to pick the newer
characters and this makes sense right if
you've been playing Mario & nass since
the games first release in 1999 on and
off across six games for the next 20
years Lang um yet again in Super Smash
Brothers ultimate is gonna be a little
less spicy than getting your hands on
some new characters with some new
dynamics
that's why Bayonetta Isabel the Belmonts
Cloud K rool and Ridley were all at the
top of the experienced gamer list now
all we need is waluigi for the meme
crowd and we've got ourselves everyone
covered but if we could put our
differences aside for a moment there's
one last thing i want to point out about
the data the characters that brought us
all together a game filled with so many
options at a ton of popular new faces -
stood out as the all-around winners
characters that topped literally every
list no matter which way i broke down
the data
can you guess who they are link and
Kirby across all generations of Super
Smash Brothers games across all genders
across all content genres and levels of
experience with the franchise link and
Kirby were always always always the
number one and number two pics always
and they did just squeak by it tended to
be by a significant margin it seems like
the pretty blond elf boy from a retro
game with a huge arsenal of weaponry and
the cute pink puffball that can
literally become anything appeal to
literally everyone trust the data but
hey that's just a theory a game theory
thanks for watching to make sure that
you understand what the story mode of
Super Smash Brothers ultimate means and
what the world of light symbolically
represents bow then you're gonna want to
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