Game Theory: FNAF, Thanks For The Memories

well loyal theorists this is it this

will be my final FNAF Theory and this

time I mean

[Music]

it the end is nearly at hand the pieces

are in place for you you missed it last

week look for the green and remember

everything I taught you remember dates

are important remember the hurry time is

running

[Music]

out hello Internet welcome to Game

Theory the show that by my count has had

no less than 10 final FNAF theories at

this point it's practically become its

own meme but this time it's no joke

after 66 theories three live talkbacks

and one bang and

remix exotic make that two bang and

remixes today I end my coverage of Five

Nights at Freddy's after this there's

only one final game theory and then the

curtain closes on my time as host and

Tom will have to step into the spotlight

hope you're ready for the challenge

there Tom Tom toy Bunny Easter Bunny

chocolate bunny melted chocolate bunny

wither bunny black hot bunny Rockstar

bunny glamrock bunny sunken toy bunny

Bon bun just BN System error bunny

nightmare bunny well done but how many

toes does he have two no three five

again ah the first step of FNAF theor

slowly losing your mind think he's going

to do just fine you know I did consider

making my final theory about FNAF but

actually have something really special

planned for that one so special in fact

that we're going to be doing a premiere

for it on this channel next Saturday

March 9th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern 11:00

a.m. Pacific we're going to have some

fun you guys will be able to chat with

me live as that video releases and who

knows there might even be some secrets

to find and most importantly of all I

get to say my final goodbye and thank

you to all of you for the last 13 years

so that's next week March 9th at 2:00

p.m. Eastern 11:00 a.m. Pacific make

sure you're subscribed so you're

notified when that one goes live

speaking of March 9th just a quick

reminder that that's also the final day

of sales for my you's once I retire as

host on the 9th of March it too will

retire and be gone forever so if you do

want this little piece of Game Theory

history or you know your own little

psychic friend fredbear head on over to

you.com or click the link in the

description to grab your mat Pat

figurine and FNAF pins before they're

nothing but a distant memory kind like

dream theory but enough housekeeping

it's time to talk about FNAF and let me

tell you I've spent a long time thinking

about this one how do you end a series

like this should I just do a normal

theory about some minute detail doesn't

really feel final you know plus I'd

probably end up calling someone a robot

and then a bunch of people would get mad

at me again should I redo the ultimate

FNAF timeline as one final here's the

lore well that would certainly be big

but it also doesn't feel like that much

was changed post ruin and help wanted to

from what we did at the end of last year

so I didn't really want to be redundant

either you can see the struggle that I

was facing right this episode it's a big

deal to me it is literally the end of my

legacy with FNAF and you see that's when

it hit me Legacy typically FNAF theories

are born out of the small details but

what if I took a step back and looked at

the big picture what if instead of

counting animatronic toes are dead kids

I took a meta approach and just looked

at the entire Legacy of FNAF I'm sure

we're all familiar with the butterfly

effect right the idea that a butterfly

flapping its wings could cause the

smallest of changes in the air which

could potentially lead to a tornado

forming well the term actually comes

from the research of meteorologist

Edward Loren who back in 1963 decided to

round some numbers in his data he

condensed one variable from

50627 to just 506 and yet that tiny

change right there completely threw off

his computer's weather models

transforming sunny skies into violent

storms hence the whole tornado thing

this realization that small changes in

data could yield such tremendously

different results ultimately threw off

science's entire understanding of nature

before Loren people thought that the

Universe could ultimately be predicted

CAC Newton back in 1687 famously

believed in the Clockwork Universe the

idea that the parts of the universe

worked like a machine and that

eventually if you understood how the

parts worked you could predict

practically anything French

mathematician Pierre Simone llas

actually said basically the same thing

eventually we would get to a place where

nothing would be uncertain and yet Loren

showed us that one small change one

minor mistake or estimate or imprecise

measurement in a complex system could

have a domino effect at a massive scale

resulting in changes that you would

never see coming for example in 1928

Alexander Fleming discovered that there

was mold in his petri dish but rather

than just throwing it away or cleaning

it up he decided to study it which then

led to the discovery of penicillin a

life-saving antibiotic that could be

used to treat menitis pneumonia ganara

syphilis blood poisoning and many others

or if you want another example you have

the explosion of hip-hop music largely

owing its Origins to a random lightning

strike in New York City in 1977 a bolt

of lightning put the city of New York

into a 25-hour blackout so what do you

do for all that time that you're stuck

in the dark you looten pillage baby New

Yorkers started to ransack storefronts

including music shops full of

instruments and supplies suddenly

expensive DJ equipment was was in the

hands of young aspiring musicians eager

to experiment with hip-hop which was a

new genre of music just hitting the

local scene and thus hip-hop was truly

able to thrive history is full of these

sorts of stories from the foundations of

medicine and music to even stuff as

Extreme as the origins of both World War

I and 2 why do I bring all this serious

stuff up in relation to Spooky Bear game

because FNAF is one of those rounded

variables one decision by Scott CN

reshaped gaming and YouTube and the

entire entertainment world as we know it

and that's not an exaggeration for a

fact one man's decision to not give up

to try again in the face of rejection

and adversity literally shifted billions

of dollars of the economy and affected

hundreds of millions of lives in ways

that are incalculable and that is what I

wanted to call attention to in my final

FNAF Theory FNAF shows us that by not

giving up one person can have a profound

effect on the course of history itself I

feel like the origin story of fnaf's

been talked about to death but just to

set the stage here despite hitting it

big with FNAF in 2014 its creator Scott

cin had been making games at that point

for 20 years years since 1994 and yet

even in those earliest days you can tell

that Scott had a fascination with creepy

robots working their designs into

projects like the Sci-Fi ifer moon and

the religious Pilgrims Progress even

this incredibly rudimentary RPG Legacy

of flan has a final boss that has what

looks to be the first appearance of what

would eventually evolve into the mangle

but despite producing a lot of games

none really ever caught the Public's eye

and then came chipper and Son's Lumber

Company where initial reviews what few

there were were rough and as The Story

Goes it was the reaction of James

Stephanie Sterling that would change the

course of CT's career forever thank God

for her it's just all over the place and

that thing looks like it's going to kill

your children I imagine the phrase kill

me is stated over and over again in the

world of chipper and Sons oh they're

robot beavers that's not good I think

he's the only living thing in this world

this repeated criticism plus the lack of

financial stability brought Scott down

to his lowest ready to quit games he

decided decided to try one final time

and lean into the thing that had been

leveled at him time and time again the

creepy robotic animations and thus Five

Nights at Freddy's was born and that

right there that's going to act as our

Nexus point the one flap of a butterfly

wing the decision to make a final game

instead of just giving up now let's see

how it all maps out from there let's

start with just the obvious Downstream

effects of this that one game over the

course of the last decade has spun off

into 12 which honestly I've never truly

sat down and processed but believe it or

not there are 12 of these things on how

you count them the entire franchise has

sold 9.9 million copies on Steam alone

which in total has an estimated revenue

of $94 million and that's not even

including the console and mobile ports

or the number of microtransactions for

FNAF AR which itself had over40 million

downloads it's also worth pointing out

that of the $94 million 55 million of

that was just from Steam sales of

security breach cuz that one was

actually at full price as opposed to all

the others which were either free or a

couple of bucks and while the first four

FNAF games were entirely a one-man job

the rest have included voice actors

composers entirely separate game studios

like steel wool and alumix even to this

day we're seeing this continuous Studios

like Mega cat who up until now have been

focused on releasing games on retro

consoles very niche market but that made

him perfect to create the Retro style

pixelated FNAF game into the pit

releasing later this year by pairing up

with these smaller companies that aren't

insanely wellknown Scott's not only been

able to make bigger better games he's

also been able to use his single game

success to put millions of eyeballs and

millions of dollars into each of these

companies as a result of their with FNAF

alumix started working with Disney on

features found throughout the parks and

if steel wool ever do release a game

outside of FNAF in the future you can

bet that it's going to have itself a fan

base attached to it because people now

know about them and they're going to

want to see what other work they can do

so that's on the game side or at least

it's on the official game side but

stopping there would be overlooking the

much bigger impact FNAF has had on the

games that haven't even been released

yet this one series inspired a whole new

generation of game designers unlike any

game that's ever really come before all

of them cutting their their teeth on a

genre that exploded in the mid-20s the

FNAF fan game five nights at Treasure

Island five nights at warrios Pop Goes

The Joy creation those nights at

Rachel's Aon build glitch attraction

bloody nights Junior's day shift at

Freddy's thank

thank what is this game I could go on

and on and on for days some of these

were just for the memes others were more

serious attempts at making Games

inspired by FNAF and many of them were

just taking the world that Scott had

created and broadening it outward into

the game that they wanted to see made if

you go into game jolt you'll find

thousands of fan games and I do mean

thousands if you search just for FNAF

and select games you're presented with

36 games per page and

277 Pages available that is

9,961 games that are tagged using FNAF

and if you're sitting there thinking

hold on the math there doesn't add up

you're right good noticing that's

because I had to remove 11 of Scott's

own games that were posted on that list

though I'm pretty sure that there are

some out there who'd like to pretend

that FNAF world was a fan game each and

every one of those 10,000 fan games

represents a budding game designer

sometimes several and well yeah many

many of those creators are likely never

going to pursue game design full-time

there are some who will either

independently or as part of a bigger

Studio going on to have their shot at

creating their own Mega franchise their

shot to transform the industry and

already you can see that some of these

devs are finding success to the point

where many of them have created multiple

different games at this point turning

their fan projects into full-on

franchises of their own and all of this

is without even mentioning the fanverse

initiative where Scott invested money

and resources into some of the most

promising projects to help those

fledgling business is grow now the

success of that one is up for debate for

various reasons but the point ultimately

stands Five Nights at Freddy's has been

directly and indirectly involved in the

rise of a new generation of game

developers developers that just now 10

years later were only starting to see

get to a point where they're really

influencing The Wider gaming landscape

except gaming it's already seen a

massive shift coming off the heels of

FNAF prior to fnaf's release if you took

a look at any top 10 list about horror

games it would have been filled with

games like Outlast PT amnesia games that

leaned hard into psychological horror

and sometimes graphic Gore FNAF though

was different while other horror games

used the classic horror Trope of not

knowing what the Monster looked like

relying on the audience's mind to fill

in the blanks of what might be lurking

in the shadows FNAF put the monsters

front and center allowing them to be the

star of the show like we see in movies

like Friday the 13th in Halloween this

allowed FNAF games to be much more

thumbnail friendly and easier to sell

online compared to the spooky dark

hallways or over complicated monster

designs that dominated the horror space

in the past mix in the more

familyfriendly scares of Freddy and the

Gang and you've got yourself a brand new

sub genre of content mascot horror as

dubbed by YouTuber John Wolf this genre

took old nostalgic locations and filled

them with brightly colored Killers

brought to life through some weird

experiment or trauma bending the ink

machine poppy playtime rainbow friends

my friendly neighborhood hello neighbor

Baldi Basics choo choo Charles am man of

the adventure and of course cart a band

ban and that's not even dipping into the

hundreds of lesser known titles like

joyville it was FNAF who paved the way

for all of these games poppy sold 2

million copies in 2 years bendy has made

over 30 million just off of its two

major installments hello neighbor is a

thing that continues to exist and while

people complain about oversaturation in

the Market at this point there is no

denying that the formula has worked

extremely well for the better part of

the last 10 years but maybe you're sick

of games you want to read a book well I

hope you're excited to read the seven

hello neighbor Books five bendy books

are the poppy playtime employee handbook

that's coming out later this year mascot

horror franchises now also line the

shelves of your local Barnes & Noble why

because FNAF did it first oh sure

Scholastic had done some video game book

publishing in the past mostly guide

books and activity books but after the

success of the FNAF Trilogy they began

to publish other video game books like

Assassin's Creed last descendants World

of Warcraft traveler this led them to

launch an entirely separate Wing to

their business AFK the video game

specific book Department it's these guys

who are publishing all the books that

Tom is now going to have to

read now it's impossible to know for

certain that FNAF was the reason for all

this but given it was often shown at the

top of articles for this new publishing

arm at launch and has sold 9 million

books to date with an average Book price

being about 10 bucks that is $90 million

infused into the historically struggling

print publishing business no wonder the

first six rows of their website are

dedicated to FNAF but without AFK it's

easy to imagine a world where these

other mascot horror games didn't get

that chance and all those writers who've

now been able to make a living off of

these franchises wouldn't be recognized

like they are I mean take for instance

Andrea Wagner who wrote the vast

majority of Fazbear Frights and tales

from the pizzaplex stories she's now

getting DMD by fans asking for lore

clarifications something I'm sure she

never Ed anticipated while working on

her past writing projects like her dog

how-to book dog parenting or alternate

Beauty the story of a big girl with Big

Dreams her words not mine the same thing

is now happening with another struggling

industry movies after spending 8 years

in production hell losing directors

struggling with Studios and trying to

nail down a script blumhouse eventually

took the chance on FNAF making the movie

on a $20 million budget and earning back

nearly 300 million if you don't think

Hollywood has taken strong notice of

that when they are struggling to get

butts and seats you are wrong you think

it's a coin incidents that 2 months

after fnaf's release bendy announced his

big screen debut and while a poppy

playtime movie was already in the works

with Studio 71 I can almost guarantee

conversations with studios around it

have shifted in the aftermath of FNAF

and who knows what other mascot horror

games might end up with movies down the

line and not only is it getting indie

game movies green lit it's also

reshaping Film Studio priorities as they

continue to Fumble around in the dark

struggling to find ways to compete with

online content I've literally had

conversations with people in film space

about how they're trying to tap into

that FNAF audience that online community

the success of this one film will be

shaping the types of movies that get

made and how they look moving forward I

guarantee it but while movie releases

mean big bucks for big studios the

economic ramifications go Way Beyond

just extra cash in the pocket of Jason

Blum the FNAF movie was shot in New

Orleans which since hurricane Katrina

has been an economically depressed part

of the country now I didn't know this at

the time but from speaking to local

actors and business owners while I was

down there filming last year I learned

that New Orleans actually has a long

history in Film Production when the

state government of Louisiana first

introduced tax breaks for film

Productions back in 2002 over a thousand

projects happened down there in the span

of s years those Productions created

jobs hired locals and brought millions

of dollars back into the city however

pre-co those incentives were rolled back

and Productions have now started to move

to other places like Georgia that's why

so many of the local actors and business

owners I spoke with while down there

were eager to see the FNAF movie in town

by shooting in New Orleans a huge chunk

of that $20 million budget was going to

accommodations drivers Caterers local

talent location Rentals equipment and

other General resources that help local

business businesses Thrive and maybe

start a domino effect to get other

movies back in the region regardless of

all of that the point is that this one

decision to try one final game it's

grown Beyond itself it's no longer about

just making its own franchise full of

games it's spread to all corners of the

media industry and to so many other IPS

and creators spawning a wave of new

franchises and giving life to so many

careers that otherwise might not have

had a chance but speaking of careers

there's one final area that's also

needing to be addressed an area that has

been so affected by FNAF it's crazy to

not talk about and that of course is

here on YouTube FNAF has done a lot of

numbers for a lot of Industries but its

effect on the YouTube landscape is still

visible to this day and in a much more

obvious way when FNAF first launched it

was just one of many games that

YouTubers started playing because spooky

games got big views this game gave rise

to some of the biggest names on the

platform names that are still going

strong today let's players like Cory X

Kenshin and markiplier who'd been on

YouTube for a couple of years but saw

their careers accelerate and parallel

alongside the FNAF releases you also had

a massive surgeon nerdcore musical

artists like The Living Tombstone whose

FNAF song was at a million views in a

couple of weeks whereas most other songs

they would release would have a few

hundred thousand views months after

release and Machinima creators started

using FNAF models and characters to tell

their own unique stories long before the

FNAF movie ever hit theaters racking up

literally billions of views but what

truly set FNAF apart were obviously the

hidden details clue and fans into the

bigger story this more than anything

else ignited the internet's passion like

never before given rise to the theorist

Community people like doo rebowski 8bit

Ryan Ry toast ID's fantasy hyper Droid

John FNAF and and of course us going

through this game piece by piece in

order to find the hidden story within it

now contrary to popular belief FNAF

wasn't the first thing that actually had

us creating lore theories that was

always just part of the Channel's DNA

but before FNAF we were coming up with

lore theories for franchises where the

story was basically wellknown whether or

not Majora's Mask is an allegory for

grieving you get the story of a moon

crashing down regardless of whether

Peach is Rosalina's mom you get the

basic premise of Mario Galaxy humans

certainly might be Pokémon that's not

really affecting anyone's journey to

become League champ but FNAF was

different it showed that games could be

built off of withholding the lore and

forcing the fan base to solve it by

leaving the door open and never

confirming anything Scott allowed

YouTubers redditors and just general

fans to continually assess and reassess

the lore find new directions new hot

takes and that means that we're still

theorizing about it to this very day can

it be frustrating absolutely heck maybe

now that I'm retiring from the channel I

can track Scott down and get some

answers out of him but it's also

entertaining and the success of this

Theory based model on YouTube has

carried over into the mainstream where

now almost every game in movie release

is designed with Theory crafting in mind

well it's impossible to calculate the

full scope of FNAF on YouTube I was able

to find that there are 106 videos with

more than 10 million views each together

they total roughly 5.4 billion views on

just their very own and if we assume

that they're getting the standard gaming

CPM on YouTube which is about $455 that

lends a total earning across all of

those videos of$

24, 570,000 in ad Revenue Markiplier's

literally gone on record to say that the

house that he lives in is the house that

FNAF paid for joked on his distractable

podcast about how lucrative fnaf's been

for him let's go into a fan favorite

here Five Nights at Freddy's boo so

there's two ways I could look at this

right I could look at it from the game

purely by itself or I could look at it

at the dividends it is paid out for me

specifically and that's put him in a

position to pursue bigger and loftier

projects like the with markiplier series

and now his movie Iron long one half of

the living tombstone Sam ha is now

writing songs for internet Sensations

like hasb been Hotel YouTubers like FNAF

and Ros they've been able to go fulltime

with YouTube all thanks to FNAF and heck

look at us because of FNAF we've thrived

we've been able to grow our team give

jobs to dozens of people perhaps best of

all we've carved out our own platform

that allows us to turn the spotlight

onto a next generation of creatives to

make us taste makers in the space that

are able to pay it forward to make you

aware of projects that you should be

playing and watching from cooking

companions to the man in the suit to

Shipwrecked 64 welcome home Mandela

catalog Walton files the list goes on

and on and on in short FNAF created an

ecosystem where new IPS can Thrive a

virtuous cycle that benefited itself to

be sure but also had a halo effect on

dozens of other franchises looking to

get attention and all of this is without

even mentioning other trickle down

effects our large platform allowed us to

run charity events like St Jude paying

that blessing forward to help doctors

and hospitals working on treatments for

Childhood Cancer where of course Scott

himself was a sizable and direct

contributor year after year there are

also dozens of other charity events

coming from creators like doo Markiplier

Jack sepai Ry toast John FNAF not only

have these events been able to raise

tens of millions of dollars for various

organizations looking to do good work in