A room full of suits of armor, a giant haunted crib, and a graveyard that you'll be dying to get into
We'll be pricing it all as we get a tour through Luigi's mansion today
On this edition of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"
*Game Theory intro theme*
*laughing* so bad at impressions and accents *continues laughing* OH it is embarrassing
Hello Internet, and welcome to Game Theory
Where first and foremost, where are my notification- squad at?
Shout out to all those loyal bell ringers
Now today, we're finally doing an episode I planned to do back in October,
but then FNAF just HAD to release a game
Luigi: always being forced to play second fiddle
First to Mario, and now to Mangle
Then again, is it really that big of a deal?
This IS a video covering "Luigi's Mansion", a game released over 15 years ago
I'd say the window for relevant hype has sufficiently passed
Or has it?
...yeah it really has
But it is worth noting that last summer, Nintendo released a new "Luigi's Mansion" arcade game exclusive to Japan
It was one that I actually made sure to check out when I was recently over there
Granted I had ZERO idea of how to actually play since, you know, Japanese
But brandishing a giant, plastic vacuum was pretty awesome
Anyways, this is gonna end up being a long episode so lets just skip the rest of the intro and cut right to the chase
-Random game selection, at random time of year
jokey, jokey, FNAF reference, EPISODE START-
For those of you unfamiliar with Nintendo's little spin-off series,
"Luigi's Mansion" is puts you in the shoes of Mario (secretly a sociopath) Mario's overlooked and over shadowed brother
who through no merit of his own has just won a mansion in a raffle he never entered
Gotta say, I am a bit jealous since the best thing I ever won out of a raffle is a pie
but hey, good for him
I celebrate his victories
You know come to think of it, It wasn't even a good pie
It was key lime, which is like the Waluigi of pies
Sure there's nothing else on the table, you're gonna eat it
but, you know, if there's an apple pie on that table you're gonna go for that one first
Anyways, as it turns out the whole, "Here's a free mansion" thing was just a trap
put together by King Boo
To lure Mario and Co. out into the open and imprison their souls in paintings, as you do.
Because in the Mario universe it's ALWAYS a painting
Mario gets himself caught and Luigi has to strap on his big boy pants,
grab the nearest dust-buster,
and alternatively suck and blow his way straight to the top
Of the mansion
It's basically the plot of "Resident Evil" if the protagonist were an antiquated racial stereotype of Italian immigrants
instead of a poorly voiced bundle of polygons
*audio clip from Resident Evil* "What? OH! OH NO!" *applause*
Now this all got me thinking,
How much did this little failed mission of King Boo's cost?
I mean, outside of just being horrendously elaborate
It also had to be seriously expensive
And that's not me just coming up with a random topic for an episode
Money plays a HUGE role throughout this game,
Ultimately determining the size of the new mansion that Luigi gets at the end of the game
In other words, there is value to all of this stuff that you see
From the house itself, to the golden jewels contained inside
But how much is it?
How rich does this game make Luigi by the end of it?
An impossible to answer question, you say?
Absolutely!
*reads above quote from The New York Times*
Well of course it is!
But darn it I'm gonna do it anyway since it gives me and excuse to research the post 2008 housing market,
architectural trends through the decades,
pixel sizes, run speeds, and currency exchanges
all while talking about one of the most fascinating entries in the Mario canon
Now stand aside naysayers, I gotta date with a fictional haunted mansion
Now before we can even start pricing mansions
you gotta first know what you're working with
What sort of amenities does your mansion have?
Where is it located?
How old is it?
How many square feet is the darn thing?
Is it even really large enough to qualify as a mansion?
Well in order to figure that one out, we gotta start somewhere that's really, REALLY counter-intuitive...
Luigi's height
Because as all you loyal theorists know by now
in the cartoonishly misproportioned world of the Mario universe
It's hard to tell exactly what size anything is
As over the last 5 years of this show, I've calculated and recalculated Mario's height
no less than 4 times based on varying pieces of evidence
Coming up with some pretty wonky results at times
Like the fact that Wario is 10' tall or 304 cm(3.04m)
Which was supported by the math
Just not by any sort of known...logic
ANYWAY
The standard we settled on in the "Mario at the Olympics" video
Was that Mario is and forever shall be 155 cm., or 5'1'' tall
Doing some simple pixel measurements from there
it means that Luigi is 175 cm., or 5'8'' tall.
But why do we need to know Luigi's height?
Well knowing it, we can figure out the length of Luigi's stride
and the speed at which he moves through this game
that in turn allows me to figure out the dimensions of any given room in the mansion
by timing how long it takes to get him to run across it
And it has to be measured in time
Since it's incredibly difficult to account for the slanted perspective of the game
Which would throw off the traditional pixel measurements of the room
Once I had the data, I was able to build out a pixel:foot ratio that
I applied to the in-game mini map
And from there, measured out all the rooms and floors of the house
and several hours of measurements and calculations later
we wound up with a working square footage of this
colossal, old house sporting 3 whole floors and 36 total rooms
Doing all the math
this thing comes in at just under 30,000 square ft.,
or 2,787 square meters
Solidly within the range of what constitutes a mansion,
which is considered a meager 8,000 square ft., or 743 square meters
Just to give you an idea of exactly how large Luigi's mansion is
Here is a picture of Mark Wahlberg's mansion
which is the exact same size
And I use the word "mansion" loosely because it is not just a mansion, it is a MEGA mansion
It's about half the size of the White House
or half the size of a football field
And remember we're talking about the square footage of the house
Which if you've never had the mixed joy and stress of buying a house,
is the measure of the finished floors of the home
It's not including the amount of land around the house,
or any unfinished attics or basements
So when I say that it's half a football field-sized house,
I mean that the rooms alone when laid together would be the size of half a football field
And sure, those houses are crazy big
But if you want an EXTREME example of what a 30,000 square foot residence looks like,
look no further than our dear president, Donald Trump
Who actually has a 30,000 square foot apartment in New York
APARTMENT
The fact that his thing can be classified using the exact same word as my 250 square foot closet that I lived in when I was in New York
is just MIND BLOWING to me
This is a New York apartment
THIS...is just insane
Now as you can imagine the prices of a home this size
are gonna vary quite a bit
Trump's penthouse for example is valued at $100,000,000
But that's also in New York City right alongside Central Park
It also happens to be covered in enough gold to stuff Bowser's train bonus level
So his might not be the best example to follow
Looking around more
I found that 30,000 square foot mansions pepper the entire United States
ranging on average between $2 million and $20 million
So...where does that leave us?
Well...unfortunately, you can't just plug video game mansions into Zillow and get a magical value spat back into your lap
So we're gonna need a little bit more research for this one
First, we have to figure out what kind of house we're looking at
You see, most of the priciest mansions on the market these days are modern constructions
with modern amenities
Neo-futuristic super castles
When shopping for mansions, or any house really
you need to be aware of how old the house is
Newer homes are always gonna cost you a bit more since everything is fresh and up-to-code
Now OBVIOUSLY this is not the kind of mansion that Luigi finds himself trapped in during his quest to rescue Mario
But to determine the range of prices this house would be operating in,
we need to determine just how old it is
And this is actually a really fun question
Fun, of course, if you're a nerd like me who loves overanalyzing in-game details that the developers left in
Because Nintendo was super smart and left little design details that allow us to pinpoint the exact time period when this house would have been built
You see, architecture is a lot like clothes
With design patterns, shapes, and overall home layouts
all having trends based on their time period
Falling in and out of fashion throughout the years just like JNCO jeans and snap bracelets
Seriously though, JNKO jeans
You could shove your whole head in that pantleg
WHAT WERE WE THINKING??
So just how old of a house is this old house?
Well to pinpoint what era it would've been built in
we have to look at the design details
And without even going inside, there's a lot of clues that can help us
First off, check out that roof
That style of steep-sloping roof with windows peeking through
where the roof is around the sides of the building?
That's known as a Mansard roof
You see it a lot in Europe,
especially in very historical cities like Paris
But lets not stop there
Looking at the overall layout of the mansion will give us a clue as to when it was built
The mansion is blueprinted out in a simple box shape
with no fancy wings or long hallways to different sections of the house
It's very contained
Symmetrical
Once you're actually inside
one of the main features is that bold central staircase
and a ton of chandeliers
And looking at the actual classifications and uses of the rooms
we can see elaborate ballrooms and art rooms
In short, all of these design details clearly point to one era in architecture: Victorian
And not just any old Victorian style
this mansion very distinctly falls into what's called the Victorian Second Empire style
It's called "Second Empire" because it's an architectural style that became popular during the reign of Emperor Napoleon the 3rd in France
This was a period where the French empire was rebuilding itself
thus creating a second empire in the mid 1800s
Make sense?
Second Empire Victorian
Look at that, video games teaching you about old-world European architectural trends
Where else online are you gonna find stuff like this?
Fun Fact: It's also known as Baroque Revival Architecture
*disk scratch* actually, that's not a fun fact at all
it's just a fact
It also has no bearing on the episode at all
I tell you it only in the hopes that it may one day be useful to you in a Quizbowl tournament or pub trivia
You know, the places where information TRULY matters *sarcasm*
*soft piano*
Anyways, second era houses
-even HUGE ones-
are surprisingly cheap as far as mansions go
But don't you go running for those loan applications just yet
they're affordable because they generally require huge modernization investments
including rewiring absolutely EVERYTHING,
re-pouring the foundation,
and just generally making sure that the darn thing doesn't collapse into a pile of dust
Plus they have practically no insulation to speak of
and are gonna be drafty as all get out
"Green friendly" these houses are NOT
The most expensive Victorian mansions come in at just about $30.00 per square foot
or $30.00 per 0.1 square meter
which when multiplied out gives our mansion a value of $896,312.03
Less than a million dollars for a house the size of half a football field
When you think about it that way, it ain't too bad!
But remember, that's just for the shell of the house
Luigi's mansion comes fully furnished
Granted, you might not want that furniture
but you still gotta pay for it
Chandeliers, art, undead baby cribs
HECK, it even comes with it's own graveyard
WHICH
(and this is a fun fact)
would cost over $70,000 to get rid of if you wanted to legally relocate the human remains
Notice though, that I said, "legally".
*Thunder crash*
*heavy footsteps*
*creepy music slowly intensifies*
*more footsteps*
*slams door*
*more loud, creepy sounds and thunder crashes*
*Matpat whispers to Luigi* "Your secret is safe with me"
Add into that amount all the antique furniture,
china,
three leopard skin rugs,
a giant harp,
and 9 FULL suits of armor
(yes, I counted)
and you're looking at an extra 400 GRAND from all the junk inside of it
And mind you, that's not including the cost
you'd have to pay for the army of Roombas you'd want roaming the place
I mean seriously, every time Luigi humps a new cabinet
dust just pours out of that thing
*cabinet thumps* Luigi(in-game audio): "Oh yeah!"(repeatedly at gradually faster speeds) Matpat: "Oh no Luigi...Oh...No."
ANYWAYS
This springs our total cost of Luigi's mansion to $1,315,433.51
Or basically what Ryan's Toy Review channel earned off at 680,000,000 views in the month of December
How's that make you feel?
We're all getting out-earned by a FOUR-YEAR-OLD
Youtube: maker of dreams
Alright, alright I'm not a four-year-old toy reviewer
so that 1.3 million dollars might be a little bit more than I'm willing to pay
But I'm in luck
Luigi's mansion might still be in our price range thanks to the rules around "stigmatized properties"
You see, any house or property that's had something terrible
or stigmatizing happen in it
can be drastically reduced in value
Murder? Stigmatized!
Suicide? Stigmatized!
The ghost of Luigi hanging itself in the attic?
That property be STIGMATIZED, son!
A stigmatized property is the best
It's like Black Friday deals for murder dens
with price reductions going as high as 25%
Best of all, it doesn't matter when the tragedy occurred
the stigmatization can last for DECADES
Turns out, people tend to not want to live in homes that were scenes of brutal murders
But I guess I can understand why
Blood stains are IMPOSSIBLE to get out of the carpet
I've tried bleach, I've tried vinegar, I've tried baking soda
None of it works
So when it comes to Luigi's mansion,
sure, maybe not every ghost died in there
but seriously, we can be pretty sure that
a mother, father, and their infant child met an unfortunate end inside it's halls
The rooms are still decked out for this family
So assuming you're comfortable living in the presence of the walking dead
it makes our final running total for Luigi's entry on the "MTV Cribs" programming slate
A cool $986,575.13
Just shy of 1 million
WHAT A STEAL!
So Luigi becoming the owner of his own mansion
isn't gonna quite make him as well off as you might expect
Or does it?
You see, the big twist here is that
while the mansion might not be worth all that much
the piles, and piles, and PILES of extra treasure that are hidden INSIDE that mansion
in the form of gems, coins, dollar bills, and freakin' GOLD BARS
are worth a WHOLE heck of a lot more
And they're REAL
As we see Luigi using all of this wealth at the end of the game to pay for his new house
So, using the cheapest value of a good delivery gold bar at the smallest size of 350 troy ounces
-or just over 10 kilograms-
to determine the approximate value of 1G
G= the games currency
By doing that, I learned that these ghosts have dumped over $500,000,000 worth of change
in between those couch cushions
HOLY GOLD STANDARD, Batman!
No wonder Luigi is so excited to hump the furniture!
Who is bankrolling these ghosts??
And if you think that I'm pulling that number out of thin air
Oh no, my friends, think again
We priced as much as we could
Here's a brief glimpse of that shopping list
In other words,
in one run-down mansion, King Boo and his thugs crammed over 500 OTHER mansions worth of treasure into the place!
Just sitting there, waiting to be vacuumed up!
Suck on that Mark Wahlberg, you and your mansion ain't cutting it!
Luigi is worth a cool 500 million
What are you at? What? 200 million?
HA! Sucks to be you!
*disk scratch* Actually, no. No it probably doesn't
So loyal theorists, there you have it
If you wanna get rich,
be sure to find a giant haunted, "Second Empire" era Victorian mansion
filled with ghosts who have no idea what the value of the dollar is
But in the end, the true moral of today's episode that we can all walk away with is this:
Sure, we all may feel bad for Luigi because he's the forgotten brother and all that,
but seriously, save your tears
The guy's got more money than all of us put together
I looked it up, there are 2,600 people in the world who have 500 million dollars or more
He is the 0.0001%
So you know what?
Suck it up Luigi, you filthy rich bastard!
BUT HEY!
That's just a theory,
A GAME Theory!
Thanks for watching! :)