The missing ingredient from the Theory channels is passion. And it's been an issue since long before MatPat left.
The most important part of Game Theory was the passion that MatPat managed to put forth in all of his videos. When he was first starting out, it was pretty much all him. He did the research, the recording, the editing. So when the videos came out, it was his creation in its entirety. As time went on, he let other people handle aspects of the videos so that he could keep up the quality and quantity.
And then he started outsourcing the theories. Which was fine, since he couldn't possibly keep up with the sheer number of theories and the research required to produce decent theories at a decent pace. So other people started writing the theories and doing the research and editing the videos and MatPat started to become more of a figurehead for the Theory channels. It was as though his voice was the identity of the channels, but the actual content had shifted into its own thing. It was no longer MatPat, the impassioned theorist, but the Theory Channels.
The fact that MatPat somehow managed to sell these theories for so long really speaks to his charisma and acting ability. Because there are honestly countless theories he likely had no idea about but had to speak of in a manner as though he was completely well-versed on.
And I think that's the issue.
When the channels started, it was one man doing everything. So the passion shone through. As time went on, he had to diversify and hire people on to handle other parts of the project. And there came a point where MatPat was basically just doing voiceover work. Now that he's gone entirely, he's been replaced by 4 people, and it's hard to discern just how involved they are in the theories that they voiceover. So it feels like we have 4 people doing voiceover work for theories they know nothing about, feel nothing for, and have done no effort in researching.
That is the fundamental issue of current Theory Channels for me. We started with one man and a dream that he pursued with passion, and it now feels like we just have a conveyor belt where every product has gone through multiple stages of production and is now easily digestible. And the problem didn't start with the new hosts; it started long ago when MatPat started to become nothing more than the face and voice of the channels. With that identity lost, it's no wonder the Theory Channels feel like a ghost of their former selves. We slowly lost the passion and now we've lost the identity entirely.
I struggled for years trying to explain how I felt about all this. But now I understand. I get it.