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