How Theorist Media Built a Media Empire for the Earnest

“I grew up online at probably too young of an age trying to find people to talk about the things that I liked,” reflects Amy Roberts, the manager of business development at Theorist Media and creative director and host of its fashion-forward brand Style Theory. “Being able to do that for a living is a huge gift. It really just makes you excited to be able to hop onto a mic and have those conversations that hopefully the audience will carry on even after you’ve stepped out of it. It’s such an exciting thing to do. It really is a privilege to be someone who puts that out there and have that be your job.”

For the uninitiated, Game Theory has been around in some form and on some platform since 2011, providing fans with deep dives on gaming lore, adding fresh perspectives and new dimensions to the classic properties that gamers love. The brand has since expanded into channels and programming based on everything from movies (Film Theory), to food (Food Theory), to the aforementioned fashion (Style Theory), and more. Game Theory boasts over 19 million subscribers on YouTube alone, while the brands are also available through Spotify and Theorist Media’s new streaming service TheoryVerse.

Roberts began working for Theorist Media in 2018, starting out as a channel manager, rising through the ranks of the company, including becoming its brand manager for a time. Throughout her time with the company, Roberts has held a multitude of roles, both behind-the-scenes and on camera and mic as a host or in a supporting capacity, gaining tremendous perspective and insight on its operations. It also means that Roberts is exceptionally clear about what connects and defines all the different programs and personalities that make up the content being produced by Game Theory across all of its platforms.

“When you boil it down to the very bare-bones, it’s an earnestness, a curiosity, and a want to learn and educate alongside being entertaining,” Roberts explains. “As long as we can keep those core values in anything that we do, we’re able to sustain itself and still feel like a brand, even with so many voices being a part of it. We look to see who would best represent that voice. We just want to make sure that they have that passion for the subject matter that they’re talking about.”

One of the exciting new platforms for Theorist Media and its popular programs, including Game Theory, is Spotify, with the company publishing its content on the service starting in April 2023. The positive response on the service has been quick and effective, introducing the company’s programming to both existing audiences and, perhaps more interestingly, audiences that had never followed the company on its other platforms before. All of Theorist Media’s verticals and fan-favorite programming, including livestreams, are available through Spotify, providing the company with an impressive avenue to grow its audience across the board.

“Spotify is fascinating because what it’s let us do is grow an entirely new subset of the audience,” Roberts observes. “People who listen to us on Spotify aren’t necessarily the same people who find us on YouTube. It’s only been additive for us. We can see that in the data that we have available to us from Spotify. The demographics are different, the way people that listen to us are different, and the episodes that do well are different. Some episodes that are mid to low tier on YouTube are some of our most popular episodes on Spotify.”

Of course, Theorist Media’s content coming to Spotify doesn’t just mean that its new programming is on the platform, but also its considerable backlog across all of its shows. With series like Style Theory and Food Theory, that means audiences are going back to the earliest episodes of these shows after finding a program and/or voice that they’ve come to enjoy and appreciate. For Roberts, whose seen viewership performance through other platforms, she’s found how audiences embrace the various programming through Spotify to be noticeably unique.

“The beauty of Spotify is that it’s already an audience that is trained to want to go back when they find shows,” Roberts shares. “A lot of people think of it as a music streaming service, but it is also a place where people go when they want that long-form content they can binge for a very long time. Whether it’s podcasts, audiobooks, or shows like ours, it is an audience that’s built for that. They’re built to want to learn and find something that’ll give them new knowledge as a companion piece for whatever else they’re doing.”

While Amy Roberts certainly has held and holds many roles within Theorist Media, she is certainly not the only one keeping the ship running, something that she’s quick to point out. Emphasizing that the company has always been a team effort, Roberts notes that the team is always carefully working together and trusting each other to get the job done, especially when working with so many external partners, each with their own project details.

“I’ll never put myself as the front mask to everything that’s going on,” Roberts adds. “We have found people in our Game Theorist community that really can help navigate it. It’s about being able to trust those team members to lead these conversations and working with our management so that we know what we need to deliver. It is not a one-person thing. It’s a team effort. If we didn’t have that, I don’t think we’d be nearly as on top of everything”

With new content being published regularly, including through Spotify, covering a multitude of topics, there is always something new and informative being produced by Theorist Media. Roberts is also excited about the launch of TheoryVerse and its new shows, including the game show and hot take show Just a Theory and Dead Wrong, respectively. And with new shows coming to TheoryVerse in early October, things appear to be as delightfully busy as ever for Theorist Media.

Game Theory and other Theorist Media shows are available via the show’s official page, the TheoryVerse streaming service, and Theorist Media’s channels on YouTube.