Hello Internet.
Welcome to Game Theory
My name is Warf Pat and we are joined on the couch today by a very special guest.
Where's my Game Theory... theory?
MatPat is making theories about YouTubers? Maybe someone should make a theory about him.
(Overlapping Comments, Basically Saying about He Should Make A Theory About Himself)
Fine, let's do it. But be warned, we're just getting started.
[Da Litttttttt GT Intro]
Hello, Internet! Welcome to Game Theory!
Now, I don't know if you've noticed it on the channel,
but my latest obsession is with A.R.G's: Alternate Reality Games
They're basically puzzles that play out in the virtual world,
AND in the real world
at the same time. (mInD bLoWn)
A few weeks ago was the FortNite A.R.G, with the Burger and the(californian) dessert,
The mysterious phone number and the llamas spread across Europe, which has now bled into the
cube mystery, all topics that I am currently working on
and owe you an update about.
Then I moved onto the MCU A.R.G., not the Marvel Cinematic Universe
but the MARKILPLIER (Daddy) character universe
tracking how everyone's favorite, butter voiced gamer has been seeding clues out across dozens of his YouTube videos
The clues are part of a puzzle that crosses over between the fictional world of
Markiplier's scripted sketches and the real world letsplayer
Mark Fischbach
EVEN PETSCOP which I am getting back to next week
Can almost also be seen as an ARG:
A mystery where the clues start inside of a fictional game
They spill out into a fictional series of Game Play recordings
And then crossing into Petscop's own Youtube page
Whether it's the Halo I Love Bees ARG back from 2004;
Or FNaF's hidden clues from Scottgames website
ARG's are Incredible because they drop you into an real life mystery *plop*
Where everyone can work together to play
But now it's our turn; the microscope is on us
After years of exposing the mysteries other people have been seeding out into the world
or haven't intentionally been seeding out
but we have cobbled enough evidence to make a case for it anyway
It's now time to expose
OURSELVES (not like that)
This summer, we dipped OUR toes into the A.R.G pool;
Easing you into the world of Clue Hunting
By challenging you to put the years of watching me theorycraft to the test
Since this was such a new thing some people got it and some people didn't
And I've learned a WHOLE lot about how to make this process bigger and better
So today I wanted to take a moment and give you a Game Theory based on the game that Game Theory created
bringing you the solution to the first ever real world mystery that oof
we gave you guys to solve this past summer so that way
you all know where the clue were hiding and how the game was played
so that way you are prepared for next time
cause you never know when the next one might start
Heck it could even be today.
(Mwhaahaa) (Hmm) (editer: it is, at the end of the vid is some numbers that might be something to do with it)
(thunder and lightning crackling) (editer: guys we got to get on this)
Oh, and I do have a quick request
either make sure you stick around until the very end or
if you start getting bored and just want to click away
though I can't image why you would ever want to do that.(duhhh watch the entire vid) But even still
before you do please do me a favor and hop to the end of the video
I have an important question that I need you guys to weigh in on
regarding the future of the channel and these sort of IRL
experiences that I would love your opinion on time code to skip to is
Boop.. on the screen right now, (8:52) but heck you don't need it
You want to know this whole thing played out and how you specifically can get
involved next time so no more waiting lets get to exposing ourselves
---[yuck mat put that thing away!]
seriously guys! stop it with PervPat (Whispers) Editors (grunts)
One of my big frustrations has been with that
with an audience of 11 MILLION people
Which is incredible, there is no way to interact with you all
beyond just these videos
I mean think about it this way even if we went to a convention as big as
Vidcon which gets 30,000 attendees and all of them
were Game Theory fans and we did one convention a day
every single day for a year we would still only see
10,950,000 of you!
so that's a big reason why we started the livestreams (GTLive)
as a means of reaching as many of you
as wanted reaching on a daily basis
but it's not quite the same as something, interpersonal
IRL. You know?
Add to that my frustration about how negative the internet and online communities are these days
It's all drama and politics (boring)
I wanted something that would bring Theorist together. To talk.
To make new friends, to do what we love to do.
To nerd out, solve puzzles and have fun
Together. So with that in mind. Rewind all the way back to February.
Right after we released the first round of T-Shirts at the beginning of the year (dat was lit)
seeing you all get your shirts and socks and hoodies. And sharing the pictures
With me on twitter and then wearing them when you showed up at meet and greets
Gave me this idea this was the way to
Cross over and interact with everyone in real life
at scale. And heck lets face it a ton of other youtubers do merch
but not one of them have built an A.R.G. into
the merch before. And if that what it takes to keep my crown as
Nerdiest youtuber on the internet, well then call me Hercules
cause I am there to (sings) Go the Distance
ok so thats where the ides came from, but what did it actually take to
solve this thing. Well I made it clear that everyone who got merch would get themselves
A clue. And they did
Even if a lot of people over looked it, it was actually
hidden in the packaging, I actually thought that it was great that
some people tweeted at me with pictures of their merch bags
but would also then also say that they were bummed that they didn't get themselves a clue...
IT WAS RIGHT THERE
IT IS THERE IN THE PICTURE YOU CAN SEE IT
anyway the first thing that grammar conscious theorists noticed
was that the bag their merch came in would come with a typo
my hope, was that this would prompt them to go online and start asking about it
where they would then start seeing that the merch actually came in six
differently colored bags
each one with a different typo. the goal for this was to
promote community. no one single person would have all the clues
and they would have to work together to solve this thing. arranging
them and re-arranging them by color order alphabetical order
until you finally figured out that they spelled theory or more
accurately T#3Ør%.
but then, what do you do with it?
this is the place where a lot of you started scratching your heads, and I started
seeing stuff show up on twitter like "I got a smudge on the back of my patch,
could it be a clue? because merch ships out all across
the world and can sometimes take weeks to arrive, we didn't want
the contest to favor people who had ordered merch in the U.S or
in places with faster shipping. so to make sure everyone was on
the same playing field, we held back the shipment of the GT Journals.
which were the lynch pin in the whole puzzle because we
knew that once you guys got your hands on it, everything
else would fall into place relatively quickly. and this is something that quite honestly didn't work
as well as we expected. We're continuing to learn from it since
it seemed to cause more frustration than fairness.
it's a tough problem to solve, but we have a couple of potential solutions in the works
for future ARG's, so we heard your notes, we understand the frustration (always learn from ur mistakes)
and don't worry, we're working on improving the process
in the future. Anyway almost immediately
after the journals went out, teams of theorists started to
notice that something funny was going on with images.
Although there were a lot of pictures and text, for some reason all the eyes
seemed to have these weird designs in them
to further emphasize this the last page of the journal told readers to keep their
eyes open. Looking closer you could see that all
the designs were letters and going through them sequentially you could
spell out "HASMATPATGONEMAD.COM"
next part is obvious, heading to that website. Once
there, loyal theorists found a special video, waiting just for them.
Now I've done a lot of cringe worthy things over the years things (samee)
that will be used to embarrass me for decades to come and kill any hopes
of me ever becoming president one day, but THIS video
is just another addition in that pile. You see it's a super creepy
rendition of yours truly staring back at you and although
some people were mislead by the audio in the background, which was definitely
some place I considered to hide more clues to keep things
logically consistent for this first ever ARG, I wanted to stick with the theme of eyes.
So if you were to track my blinking,
it was all done in Morse code. Spelling out the Morse code yielded
the following phrase: thetheoristgateway.com.
So it was once again off to another website
where you had to verify you weren't a robot and then put in the final code.
A color code. A code that related back to the colors in the packaging,
Theory. Now if you were one of the lucky, and incredibly fast,
first hundred finishers you were promised a special prize for being among the first
to make it there. We're putting the finishing touches on those prizes now.
And those one of a kind pieces will be signed by us and then sent to you
to commemorate your victory of this challenge! A little tip of the cap
from one theorist to another and to make it clear now that it is all said and done,
since there was some confusion about all of this, a lot of those
first hundred finishers were people who didn't actually buy the merch
like I said, purchasing merch wasn't a requirement of winning.
Did it help? Yeah, absolutely because some of the clues were hidden in your hands
But it was my intent to design something that as many of you as possible
would be able to participate in by joining a team sharing images
.. - / -... . --. .. -. ... / .- --. .- .. -. / - --- -.. .- -.-- .-.-.- / ..-. .. -. -.. / - .... . / -.-. .-.. ..- . / .. -. / - .... .. ... / ...- .. -.. . --- / .- -. -.. / -- . . - / -- . / .. -. / - .... . / .--. .-.. .- -.-. . / .- - / - .... . / - .. -- . .-.-.-
and brainstorming together as a community! And to those of you
who made it all the way to the end of the ARG, but weren't in the first hundred
don't worry! We're actually keeping track of everyone
who completes these things behind the scenes and making sure that there are
some benefits for you as well! You think I was joking about theorist points
when I mentioned them a few episodes back?? HA nope!
Think again! Whether or not you realize they exist, you have a tally of theorists points
that we are keeping track of (That's weird Mat) Points that will be redeemable
for something down the line. All of which leads me to the really exciting part
NEXT TIME! Because if you thought this was a one off mystery
WOO-HOO boy I am just getting warmed up. I intentionally
made this one quick to solve. A - to warm you guys up
and B - to start working out some of the kinks
almost like this was a beta test
We heard your feedback! The good and the constructive
Thank you very much and we are working on solutions now!
Like insuring that no one thing holds too many clues
doing videos like this to inform that inform you of how the rules
and future ARGs operate. And making sure that there are time
equalizers in place so that everyone across the world
can access sections of the puzzle at the same time. No one is waiting on stuff to arrive in the mail
or thinking that the puzzle can be completed earlier than it can be
and all of that. We are refining things, we are making them better
So GET READY. There's gonna be another mystery rolling out in
November to go along with the holiday gear we are coming out with.
So jingle those bells and prepare yourself for a REAL puzzler this time.
NO MORE MISTER NICE PAT
You guys are an incredibly smart community
And I know that you're going to have a really good time sinking your teeth into this one.
With that being said, I'd like to make this all bigger! A LOT BIGGER!
And that's where I have this serious question for you guys
Over the past couple of months, youtube approached us about
their new membership feature
and asked if we would be interested in using it. Basically, it allows you guys
to become a sponsor of the channel for 5 dollars a month
and you would get special perks that us channel creators would dictate
It's kind of like a combination of twitch and patreon models
Now we've been pretty weary about turning on stuff like this in the past
And if you've watched any of our live streams we actively talk
about the fact that we never want people to feel like they have to pay to be a part of this community,
or have their voice heard. Despite the fact that Game Theory
does take a lot more hours than your typical YouTube video
because of all the scripting and research, the hundreds of editing hours
We can make it work with AdSense alone so thankfully
We've never had to ask you guys for any sort of funding in the past.
But at the same time, others over here on the team have mentioned in the past
that things like memberships and the perks that it offers
are really attractive to people who'd rather show their love and appreciation for a channel
in a digital ways. Where they get digital goods like badges and special
emotes for that small sponsorship donation. And since
this is a community that we have all built together
I didn't want to single handedly make the decision about something
that you all might want access to.
So when youtube asked us if we wanted to try memberships, we literally told them
"Hang on, we wanna ask the people who would be joining this community in the first place."
So that brings us to this poll.
For the first 7 days that this video is live. We are actually going to be running a survey.
Here's the question that I need you to vote on.
Would you like memberships turned on as a feature for this channel?
Now just so we are all clear, for that 5 dollars you would get yourself
a badge next to your name in the comments, that would get more exclusive the longer you're joined as a member
you would get 10 or more customized theorists and GTLive icons
to use in the comments.
You would get access to special member only videos and posts that we would do
You would get access to merch discounts,
and at least one member only live stream per month. As well as other things that we think of down the line
What doesn't go away, is everything that we are doing already!
GTLive will still be around, game theory and THE SCIENCE
will also still be around. Absolutely no memberships required.
Your funding would all just be for added stuff
on the channel. And what you'd also be doing is helping us expand
to more cool bigger interactive activities
like this ARG. I don't know if you've picked up on this, but ARGs like the one we ran this summer
require a HUGE amount of planning
and work. For this one we needed to design and build two
separate websites, completely design the clues in the journals
by hand and then print, manufacture, and randomize
six different kinds of packaging to do the merch. To do that,
we needed a lot of help. So you joining the membership program
would just allow us to make future puzzles bigger and better!
With more steps along the way! Allowing more people to play
And making the prizes even more special :)
So I really need you to vote! Click the link in the top of the description
to cast your vote. Either yes, no, or meh, I don't care.
A vote for yes, enables us to do more interactive puzzles
and ARGs with you, not just with merch but even in our regular episodes!
Who knows?! The next one may have even just started!
Honestly, the last seven years of watching this channel has showed all of you
to look for stuff like in code and html files
how to convert jpegs to .txt files
or how to run audio through a specter graph to reveal hidden messages
Even on the live streams we've been leaving you with hidden messages for almost 3 years
as cryptograms in the backgrounds!
Don't worry! There are still a lot of tricks up my sleeve.
But I need to know whether this is something you're interest in. Or honestly, whether you'd rather
just get your 16 minute theory every week and then be on your way.
Cuz let me tell ya, if that's all you want, it makes my life a heck of a lot easier!
But at the end of the day it's all about making this channel something
that you're gonna be excited about now and another 10 million subscribers from now.
And making these sorts of games is fun for me!
But if you don't like them, well. Then. I'll just.. make them for myself.. I guess..
Alright! So this is your chance to dictate the future of this channel.
Like Captain Planet says, "The power is yours!"
Don't let your vote go to waste. And let me honestly know what you think.
Like I said, this community is something I marvel at every single day.
And I am so proud that we have been able to build it up to this level
but a decision like this, is just too big. I don't want to deprive you of features
that you might want, but at the same time I don't want to turn on something
that makes some of you feel alienated. So I really need your opinion on this.
I've been of two minds of it this entire time and regardless,
don't worry. Because more games and more theories
will be on the way! Thank you guys for your opinion,
your enthusiasm, and for watching.
I'll see you all next week!