Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'' (TPP) is a
social experiment
A social experiment is a type of Psychology, psychological or Sociology, sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of inform ...
and channel on the
video game live streaming
The live streaming of video games is an activity where people broadcast themselves playing games to a live audience online. The practice became popular in the mid-2010s on the US-based site Twitch, before growing to YouTube, Facebook, China-bas ...
website
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
, consisting of a
crowdsourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
attempt to play
Game Freak
is a Japanese video game developer, best known as the primary developer of the mainline ''Pokémon'' series of role-playing video games published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company.
History
Predating the video game company, ''Game Freak'' ...
's and
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
's
''Pokémon'' video games by parsing commands sent by users through the channel's
chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
. It holds the ''
Guinness World Record
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' for having "the most participants on a single-player online videogame" with 1,165,140 participants.
[
The concept was developed by an anonymous Australian programmer and launched on 12 February 2014, starting with the game '']Pokémon Red
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
''. The stream became unexpectedly popular, reaching an average concurrent viewership of over 80,000 viewers (with at least 10% participating). On 1 March 2014, the game was completed after more than 16 continuous days of gameplay; Twitch estimated that over 1.16 million people participated, with peak simultaneous participation at 121,000, and with a total of 55 million views during the experiment. On 5 December 2014, Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'' received a Game Award in the "Best Fan Creation" category.
The experiment was met with attention by media outlets and staff members of Twitch for its interactivity, its erratic and chaotic nature, the unique challenges faced by players due to the mechanics of its system, and the community and memes
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
developed by participants. Twitch as a company used the experiment to explore how they could make streaming more interactive for viewers and expand their offerings. Following the completion of ''Red'', the broadcaster continued the channel with many other games in the ''Pokémon'' series along with unofficial ROM hacks
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* R ...
. The broadcaster has plans to continue with other ''Pokémon'' games as long as there remains interest in the channel. The success of the experiment led to a number of similar Twitch-based streams for other games, and led Twitch to promote more streams with similar interactivity with watchers.
Premise
Inspired by another Twitch-based interactive game, ''Salty Bet'' (a website where users could wager on the outcome of randomized ''M.U.G.E.N.
''Mugen'' (stylized as ''M.U.G.E.N'') is a freeware 2D fighting game engine designed by Elecbyte. Content is created by the community, and thousands of fighters, both original and from popular fiction, have been created. It is written in C an ...
'' matches) and described as a social experiment
A social experiment is a type of Psychology, psychological or Sociology, sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of inform ...
, the system used by the stream was coded by an anonymous Australian programmer, colloquially known as the "Streamer", consisting of an IRC bot
409px, An IRC bot performing a simple task.An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another user. An IRC bot differs from a regular client in th ...
written in Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
and the Game Boy
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...
emulator
In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...
VisualBoyAdvance
VisualBoyAdvance (commonly abbreviated as VBA) is a free emulator of the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance handheld game consoles as well as of Super Game Boy and Super Game Boy 2.
Besides the DirectX version for the Windows platf ...
. The script captures specific case-insensitive messages (directional commands, "B", "A", "select", and "start") sent into the stream's chat room by users, and sends them to the emulator as button input, thus controlling the game. An additional web app coded using JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
is used to display a live tally of moves that are shown within the stream. The Streamer chose ''Pokémon Red'' and ''Blue'' for the project, citing nostalgia for the early games,[ the fact that "Even when played very poorly it is difficult not to make progress in ''Pokémon''",] and because its current control structure " ouldn'twork with any genre that isn't a JRPG
While the early history and distinctive traits of role-playing video games (RPGs) in East Asia come Video games in Japan, from Japan, many have also been Video games in South Korea, developed in South Korea and Video games in China, in China. ...
", particularly targeting its "forgiving" turn-based structure and lack of reaction-based gameplay, compensating for the large amount of input lag
Input lag or input latency is the amount of time that passes between sending an electrical signal and the occurrence of a corresponding action.
In video games the term is often used to describe any latency between an input and either the game or ...
between the game and the stream. The Streamer used an edited
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...
version of the game, which claims to make all the original 151 Pokémon accessible, in hopes of making completion of the Pokédex a possibility. However, the edited version used was unfinished and has no gameplay differences when compared to the original game.[
The erratic nature of the control scheme has made the game longer and harder to play than under normal circumstances; an '']Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
'' writer commented that "(Red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
) gets stuck in corners. He walks in circles, compulsively checking his Pokédex and saving over and over again. Commands stream in from the chat channel faster than the game can possibly process them, making progress difficult-to-impossible even without the lag factor or the 'help' of gleeful trolls." Recurring difficulties have occurred with areas of the game involving mazes and ledges (areas with the latter taking as long as several hours to navigate due to users intentionally sending "down" commands to jump off the ledges), the accidental release of several Pokémon (including an incident referred to as "Bloody Sunday," where a total of twelve Pokémon were accidentally released whilst trying to obtain a Zapdos from the PC), and users repeatedly sending "start" commands to open the pause menu, often followed by opening the character's inventory to select random items. A system to throttle inputs on the Start button was added to mitigate this particular effect.[
Despite the seemingly erratic process of playing the game, players have attempted to collaborate and strategize through various means, including infographics and a ]user script
A userscript (or user script) is a program, usually written in JavaScript, for modifying web pages to augment browsing. Uses include adding shortcut buttons and keyboard shortcuts, controlling playback speeds, adding features to sites, and enhan ...
which hides command messages from the chat window to allow conversation. This was necessary for the players to progress as several areas of the game require coordinated actions to gain Pokémon with a specific skill needed to clear obstacles in Red's way, and earlier attempts without such coordination resulted in missing out on specific opportunities early on in the playthrough. In essence, the majority of players have attempted to counteract trolls
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...
trying to impede progress. A computer program was even created to automatically identify these trolls.[A. Haque.]
Unsupervised Context-Aware Anomaly Detection for Identifying Trolls in Streaming Data
" ''Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin'', 2014.
The Streamer has since collaborated with others to continue preparing tools for the games for the Twitch channel. This group had added live commentary on the games as they were played. As a result of intra-group hostility from some of the collaborators, the Streamer stepped down from his role as lead for Twitch Plays Pokémon on 22 November 2017, and gave control to another collaborator.
Progression and further games
On 18 February 2014, after encountering major difficulties with a puzzle in the Team Rocket
A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal.
As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to infor ...
hideout, a new mechanic was introduced in an effort to make the game easier to play, Democracy mode. Initially, all movements became subject to a vote: all inputs received over a period of time (usually 30 seconds) were tallied, and the winning command would be executed at the end of that time. Users could also append their movements with numbers to specify the length of the motion, such as "right3" to mean three consecutive "right" inputs. Many people were outraged over this new system and protest broke out in the Twitch chat, many of them using the command "start9" (which would open and close the pause menu nine times to slow down progress) to fight the system. This became known as "The start9 protests." The broadcaster later reworked the mechanic so that users could vote to switch between two modes: "Anarchy", the previous default, and this new mode "Democracy." However, a change to Democracy mode requires a supermajority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...
vote, while a change to Anarchy mode requires only a majority vote, as indicated by an on-screen meter. This change was considered divisive by players, who believed that Democracy mode conflicted with the original concept of the stream and eliminated the potential for randomness which had helped to drive the elaborate narrative and mythology that had built up around the playthrough.
Following the completion of ''Pokémon Red'', a new game began on 2 March 2014, this time with the second generation game ''Pokémon Crystal
is a role-playing video game developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color. It is the third version of second generation games after ''Pokémon Gold'' and ''Silver'', and it is also the final ''Pokémon'' game to be ...
''. The developer set a deadline for the completion of ''Crystal'' with the plan to start ''Pokémon Emerald
is a 2004 role-playing video game developed by Game Freak, published by The Pokémon Company and Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance. It was first released in Japan in 2004, and was later released internationally in 2005. It is a third version a ...
'' on a fixed date, though the players were able to complete ''Crystal'' well before this point. With the change to ''Crystal'' also came a change to the voting system; the Democracy mode was automatically activated at the top of each hour. By 14 March 2014, players had reached a major battle on Mt. Silver against Red, a trainer representing the player-character from ''Red'' and ''Blue''; however, the game was also modified so that Red's team would consist of the same Pokémon that were used to beat the Elite Four in the Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'' playthrough of ''Pokémon Red'' earlier. The developer stated that he intentionally changed the game data of ''Crystal'' to behave in this way, as it was Game Freak's original intent when creating the game that the player would face Red in ''Crystal'' using the Pokémon they had finished ''Red'' with. ''Crystal'' was beaten on 15 March, with more than 13 days of playtime. The developer stated that even though fewer viewers watched ''Pokémon Crystal'' compared to ''Pokémon Red'', he will continue the stream with other ''Pokémon'' games as long as there remains interest in the experiment.
''Pokémon Emerald'' was started on 21 March 2014. With the shift to ''Emerald,'' the Democracy mode was initially disabled entirely. ''Emerald'' was repeatedly restarted due to its soft reset
In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physi ...
ability, but was later fixed by the broadcaster.
The shift to '' Pokémon X''—the 1st installment in the franchise for the Nintendo 3DS
The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...
, brought changes to the stream's setup. As there was no PC-based emulator for the 3DS at the time, the stream was conducted on actual 3DS hardware using a hardware modification known as the 3DS Streaming Console with External Control Interface (3xtDS); developed by Reddit user dekuNukem, also known as Twitch_plays_3ds (who has also designed an automated rig for "chaining" and detecting "shiny" Pokémon), the mod allows direct control of inputs on the device via a USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
-based interface, and added the video output required for capturing the screens' content. The change to native hardware also allowed the stream to use the Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
capabilities of the device; other players of ''Pokémon X'' and ''Y'' could directly interact with the stream's player via Nintendo Network
The Nintendo Network is Nintendo's online service which provides online functionality for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems and their compatible games. Announced on January 26, 2012 at an investors' conference, it is Nintendo's second online ser ...
and the game's internet-enabled features, such as online battles, trades, and O-Powers. Following its release, ''Pokémon Omega Ruby
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
'' was also played in the stream.
In honour of the one-year anniversary of the original run, a new playing of ''Pokémon Red'' began in February 2015. The goal was to complete the game's main storyline and to catch all 151 Pokémon, the latter which they did in around 39 days.
To celebrate the project's fourth anniversary, the channel started a new playthrough of both ''Pokémon Red'' and ''Pokémon Blue'' simultaneously. Players in the Twitch channel can specify which game their command is for, but otherwise commands are issues alternating between the two games, and when the game's democratic mode is on, the command voted on is used in both games.
As the experiment moved into its fifth year, having exhausted all the official ''Pokémon'' games, the channel began using more fan-created mods of the ''Pokémon'' games.
In honor of running for six years straight, the stream ran a gauntlet of 6 games in a row.
Viewership
Launched on 12 February 2014 as a "proof of concept
Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...
", the stream was relatively inactive for the first day and a half of playing.[ However, the stream quickly went viral after that, reaching a total viewership of around 175,000 by 14 February (when players managed to beat the first of eight ]Gym leaders
A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...
). By 17 February, the channel had reached over 6.5 million total views. By 20 February, the channel had over 17 million total views, and was averaging concurrent viewership between 60 and 70 thousand viewers with at least 10% participating. By then, the players had managed to catch 12 different species of Pokémon, and made it past the fourth gym. On the completion of ''Red'', the channel had reached 36 million total views, with a peak concurrent viewership of 120,000, and an estimated 658,000 had participated. The ''Red'' stream was eventually recognized by the ''Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' for having "the most participants on a single-player online videogame" with 1,165,140. The large amount of activity on the stream resulted in "enormous (and unforeseen) stress" on Twitch's chat system, requiring the site's engineers to move the stream's chat to a higher-capacity server normally used during major e-sports
Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
events, while working on improving the infrastructure's scalability
Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system.
In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...
. The developer himself said, "I didn't think it was going to be this popular, I thought it would gain only a small group of dedicated viewers and many others would check it out briefly before moving on to other things. It's overwhelming how popular it has become."[
]
Community
An active community of players also emerged on communities and social networks such as Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
, which have liveblog
A liveblog is blog posting intended to provide coverage of an ongoing event in rolling text, similar to live television or live radio. Liveblogging has increased in usage by news organizations and blogging establishments since the mid-2000s, when i ...
ged the proceedings and developed memes
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
and other works around occurrences in the game. One item in Red's inventory from the start of the game was the Helix Fossil, which was used later in the game to revive Omanyte, but is otherwise functionless. The Helix Fossil was selected so frequently that it became an inside joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...
among players, and at times humorously calling it a deity
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
which the player-character was constantly consulting for advice, and it quickly became the players' "religion". Players went as far as treating the fossil as a symbol representing a sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that b ...
which supports Anarchy mode, while treating its counterpart, the Dome Fossil (which revives Kabuto
' (兜, 冑) is a type of helmet first used by ancient Japanese warriors which, in later periods, became an important part of the traditional Japanese armour worn by the samurai class and their retainers in feudal Japan.
Note that in the Jap ...
), as a deity to those who support Democracy mode. Fans even published "bibles" for the Helix religion. Certain Pokémon captured by Red during the gameplay have also gained fan followings. Two Pokémon that were obtained early in the game, and then later accidentally released were the Charmeleon and Rattata, "ABBBBBBK(" and "JLVWNNOOOO", further nicknamed "Abby" and "Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir Leno (; born April 28, 1950) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and actor. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show'' from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 2009 ...
".[ The team's Pidgeot, one of the highest level Pokémon in the group and often successful in battles, was named "Bird Jesus" by the community; concurrently, the team's Zapdos was nicknamed "AA-j" but referred to as "Archangel of Justice" or "Anarchy Bird".][ Their Flareon was dubbed the "False Prophet", as players had accidentally obtained it instead of Vaporeon, which was needed so they could teach it the "Surf" move needed to travel on water, and it had later caused the release of the Charmeleon and Rattata.] During the eleventh day of the event (23 February), which fell on a Sunday, the players inadvertently released a dozen of the captured Pokémon, effectively deleting the creatures from the game, an event that later became known as "Bloody Sunday". The practice of nicknames continued into ''Crystal'', which included a new Pidgeot nicknamed "Brian
Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world.
It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word meani ...
", and a Feraligatr nicknamed "Lazorgator".
Reception
Media outlets have described the proceedings of the game as being "mesmerizing," "miraculous," and "beautiful chaos," with one viewer comparing it to "watching a car crash in slow motion."[ ]Ars Technica
''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...
felt that it encapsulated "the best and worst qualities of our user-driven, novelty-hungry age," providing hours of arguable time-wasting entertainment through a word-of-mouth viral distribution.[ The stream has been compared to the ]infinite monkey theorem
The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. In fact, the monkey would ...
in that effectively random input to a game still ultimately comes out with forward progress in the game. Twitch vice president of marketing Matthew DiPietro praised the stream, considering it "one more example of how video games have become a platform for entertainment and creativity that extends WAY beyond the original intent of the game creator. By merging a video game, live video and a participatory experience, the broadcaster has created an entertainment hybrid custom made for the Twitch community. This is a wonderful proof of concept that we hope to see more of in the future."[
]
Legacy
''Twitch Plays Pokémon'' has also inspired imitators with other video games, such as ''Pokémon Blue'', ''QWOP
''QWOP'' () is a 2008 ragdoll-based browser video game created by Bennett Foddy, formerly the bassist of Cut Copy. Players control an athlete named "Qwop" using only the Q, W, O, and P keys. The game became an internet meme in December 2010. T ...
'', ''Tetris
''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the approp ...
'' (including one which used the actual command inputs from the original Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'' stream), ''Street Fighter II
is a fighting game developed by Capcom and originally released for arcades in 1991. It is the second installment in the ''Street Fighter'' series and the sequel to 1987's ''Street Fighter''. It is Capcom's fourteenth game to use the CP Syst ...
'', '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' (itself made significantly difficult by its nature as a first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...
), '' Metal Gear: Ghost Babel'', ''Dark Souls
is a series of action role-playing games created by Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The series began with the release of ''Dark Souls'' (2011) and has seen two sequels, ''Dark Souls II'' (2014) a ...
'', ''Fallout 3
''Fallout 3'' is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the ''Fallout'' series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring ...
'', ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is based ...
'', ''Teamfight Tactics
''Teamfight Tactics'' (''TFT'') is an auto battler game developed and published by Riot Games. The game is a spinoff of ''League of Legends'' and is based on ''Dota Auto Chess'', where players compete online against seven other opponents by buil ...
'', '' The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild'', ''Pokémon Go
''Pokémon Go'' (stylized as ''Pokémon GO'') is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game, part of the ''Pokémon'' franchise, developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android ...
'' (which used location spoofing to simulate the movement of a real person in response to viewers' commands), and ''Microsoft Flight Simulator
''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed sig ...
''. Similar Twitch Plays have been used for taking care of a virtual pet Tamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet that was created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was released by Bandai on November 23, 1996 in Japan and in the USA on May 1, 1997, quickly becoming one of the biggest toy fads o ...
, and installing Arch Linux
Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a Rolling release, rolling-release model. The default installation is a minim ...
onto a virtual machine through text commands entered one letter at a time. Inspired by this last application, another experimental "Stock Stream" was started in May 2017 to allow Twitch viewers to vote every five minutes on the trading of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
from an initial $50,000 fund provided by the stream's developer, placing some rules to avoid triggering any financial regulations. A similar approach using Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, with the Twitter's user icon serving as the game's output and user commands taken from tweets sent to the account, was launched in January 2021 using ''Pokémon Red''.
The term "crowdplay" has been ascribed to similar games where the actions of the crowd directly influence the gameplay. tinyBuild
tinyBuild Inc. is an American publisher of indie games based in Bellevue, Washington. The company was established by Alex Nichiporchik and Tom Brien in 2011 to expand Brien's game '' No Time to Explain'' into a commercial release. Building fro ...
used the "Twitch Plays" model to release ''Punch Club
''Punch Club'' (originally titled ''VHS Story'') is a Sports game#Management, sporting management simulation developed by Lazy Bear Games and published by tinyBuild. In the game, the player manages an upcoming boxing, boxer in training and prepar ...
'', holding back release of the game until either a preset date or completion of the game running via a public "Twitch Plays" stream. ''Punch Club'' later added the ability for viewers to bet on in-game fights using virtual ''Twitch'' currency, following a similar betting model used by Oxeye Game Systems for ''Cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
''. Telltale Games
Telltale Incorporated (trade name: Telltale Games) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following ...
premiered a new "crowd play" feature for its adventure games starting with its 2016 ''Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...
'' game, allowing stream viewers to vote on selected decisions within the game. In January 2016, Twitch created a specialized directory for various "Twitch Plays" streams, with their VP of Developer Success Kathy Astromoff stating that the company has recognized the growth of similar experiments, and enabling such experiments to be easily found by its userbase. Further, in March 2016, Twitch announced a new "stream first" initiative to help developers create games that are aimed for integration of streaming and chat atop more traditional gameplay, basing the format on the prior success of ''Twitch Plays Pokemon'' streams. Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
, which acquired Twitch in 2014, developed the Amazon Lumberyard
Amazon Lumberyard is a now-superseded freeware cross-platform game engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine (initially released in 2002), which was licensed from Crytek in 2015.
In July 2021, Amazon and the Linux Foundation announced tha ...
game engine that includes direct support for Twitch streaming to allow viewers to influence games via the associated chat, taking cues from the popularity of "Twitch Plays".
Another homage, Fish Plays ''Pokémon'', surfaced in August 2014 as part of a HackNY
hackNY is a New York City-based initiative seeking "to create and empower a community of student-technologists." hackNY was created in 2010 by Evan Korth, Hilary Mason, and Chris Wiggins. The organization is organized by faculty at both New York ...
hackathon. The stream, which consists of a fishcam
Fishcam refers to a Broadcasting, broadcast consisting of a video camera pointed at a fish tank.
Australia
Channel 31 Melbourne, Australia, had one of the more famous and long-lasting fishcams. The Fishcam itself was originally used as a replac ...
in which the position of a betta fish
''Betta'' is a large genus of small, active, often colorful, freshwater ray-finned fishes, in the gourami family (Osphronemidae). The best known ''Betta'' species is ''B. splendens,'' commonly known as the Siamese fighting fish and often kept ...
in a fish bowl
An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aqu ...
is used to control ''Pokémon Red'', peaked around 20,000 concurrent viewers.
A Helix Fossil emote with the shortcut "PraiseIt" was later made available as a Twitch chat emote in celebration of the original ''Pokémon Red'' run.
Game completion
From ''Platinum'' to ''Black 2'', the stream showed a second game, ''Pokémon Stadium 2'', alongside the main game. Unlike other games, inputs for Stadium 2 were chosen at random and were not controlled by the chat. Instead, players on the chat were given virtual currency that could be used to place bets on the outcome of Stadium 2 matches. After ''Pokémon X'' concluded on 1 August 2014, a similar system was implemented, with ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' taking the place of Stadium 2, as it added more features such as better graphics. This time, instead of inputs being entirely random, players who bet on the current match could vote on which move would be used by their team each turn; the system would randomly choose one of the bettors' choices, but players who had placed higher bets had a higher chance of their move being chosen. The developer has created a modded version of ''Pokémon Battle Revolution'' known as ''Pokémon Battle Revolution 2.0''. It is meant to fix glitches and add various improvements such as additional battle arenas. During the interim, the stream showed ''Harvest Moon GB
is the second game in the ''Story of Seasons'' series of video games, and was developed and published by Victor Interactive Software. ''Harvest Moon GB'' is the first portable ''Harvest Moon'' game, developed for the Game Boy. A Game Boy Color v ...
'', ''Pokkén Tournament
is a fighting game, fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game combines gameplay elements from Bandai Namco's ''Tekken'' series and other fighting games, such as 3D and 2D movement, with characters from the ''Pokémon' ...
'', ''EarthBound
''EarthBound'', released in Japan as is a role-playing video game developed by Creatures (company), Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The second entry in the Mother (video game s ...
'', '' Robopon Sun'', and save states of the first four runs in reverse order.
In addition, an extra game is showcased to the side of any game currently being played. This game is a romhack of ''Pokémon Pinball
is a pinball-based Pokémon spin-off video game for the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on April 14, 1999, and in North America on June 28, 1999. In it, the ball is a Poké Ball, and most of the objects on the table are Pokémon-relat ...
'' dubbed simply ''Pokémon Pinball Generations'', which adds two new boards based on the second generation of Pokémon. As such, all Pokémon from Generation II are now obtainable in-game, and Pokémon badges are awarded randomly when a Pokémon is caught during a Pinball playthrough.
See also
*Slow television
Slow television, or slow TV ( no, sakte-TV), is a term used for a genre of "marathon" television coverage of an ordinary event in its complete length. Its name is derived both from the long endurance of the broadcast as well as from the natural sl ...
Further reading
* Marley-Vincent Lindsey, ''The Politics of Pokémon. Socialized Gaming, Religious Themes and the Construction of Communal Narratives''
Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet
(2015)
* James, Eric Andrew, ''Using Rhetorical Criticism to Track Twitch Plays Pokémon Fans' Attachment to Sacrifice''
Transformative Works and Cultures
Vol. 28 (2018)
* Jenny Saucerman & Dennis Ramirez, ''Praise Helix! Christian Narrative in Twitch Plays: Pokémon''
Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet
(2016)
* Kyriakou, H., and Nickerson, J.V.. ''Twitch Plays Pokémon: An Exploratory Analysis of Mass Synchronous Crowd Collaboration''
Collective Intelligence
(2016)
* Laz Carter, ''Pokémon and a Fandom of Nostalgia''
Reflexive Horizons
24 March 2014.
* Milando, Chris, ''Community-Controlled Games and the Advent of the Fourth-Person Narrative''
Level Up Literature
Archived from th
original
on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
References
External links
Twitch Plays ''Pokémon''
on Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'' fan webpage
The Complete History of Twitch Plays Pokémon
– Schwam Games, via YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Twitch Plays Pokemon
Pokémon
Viral videos
2014 web series debuts
Twitch (service)
Internet memes
The Game Awards winners
Livestreams