YouTube star MatPat – famed for hosting The Game Theorists for more than a decade – has confirmed that he is quitting his show in March, in part as he wants to spend more time with his young son.
MatPat – real name Matthew Patrick – announced in a tearful video that in March he will be stepping down from his immensely popular channels and handing the baton over to other members of his team.
He made the announcement in a post titled ‘Goodbye internet’ – a reference to his famous intro of “hello internet” – on January 9, in which he confirmed it wasn’t a trick to get clicks but for real.
Patrick started The Game Theorists in 2011, alongside his wife, Stephanie. Since then, their mix of video game play and theories about the ‘lore’ behind the game stories has become hugely popular; the channel has more than 18.5 million subscribers.
After that took off, other channels were added, including The Film Theorists – now up to 12 million subscribers – and The Food Theorists (five million subscribers) among others.
MatPat has remained as the main host of videos across the channels over the years, while Stephanie took up more roles off-camera as a COO of the company behind the videos, Theory Media, and, latterly, as mum to their son, Ollie.
MatPat and Stephanie sold Theory Media to Lunax X in December 2022, but the team behind the videos remained in place and viewers didn’t notice any difference to the content produced.
In the video, which has been viewed more than 8 million times at the time of writing, MatPat said he wanted to spend more time with his son, but also acknowledged that, at 37, he was “over the hill” for a YouTuber.
With millions of subscribers, and over the hill or not, MatPat will be missed after he records his final video in March.
