Imagine playing a video game where you’re commanded by a handful of your friends all clawing at the controller and pushing the buttons. Difficult stuff.  Now, imagine 100,000 people all trying to do this at the same time. It’d be impossible to play, right? Well, it’s not as impossible as it may seem.

‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ (or TPP) is a social experiment run by an anonymous video game streamer. In layman’s terms, a robot is playing the game, entirely bound to completing the inputs of whatever directional instruction an individual gives. The experiment includes two  modes of play; Anarchy and Democracy. Anarchy is exactly as described above, the game moves on individual by individual control. Democracy however, allows for a 10 second waiting period in which individual inputs are collected, with the most popular choice of action being carried out. This allows for more difficult, fiddly tasks to be solved with less problem.

To fully understand this stream, lets take a step back.

Twitch TV – Video Game Streaming

Twitch TV is a platform in which video game corporations, gaming competitions, and average gaming Joes stream their video game playing, completely live. Accompanied with the stream itself is a chat system in which an audience can engage with both the streamer and other members of the audience. The key to many successful streaming events is audience engagement. TPP took this notion to the extreme, giving the audience complete control of the game. In doing so, the stream has reeled in a massive, very loyal audienceship. On average TPP has between 50,000 and 90,000 people watching at any given time (although that number has been over 100k at some tense moments in the game), and overall the stream has managed to attract a simply eye watering 26,478,081 hits.

Why Pokémon? 

Pokémon is a very popular video game franchise amongst people of all ages. The game is simple; capture a team of skilled creatures called Pokémon, train them by fighting other Pokémon, and progress through challenges set in the game. There are two end goals; to beat the four most powerful ‘Pokémon trainers’ and/or catch every Pokémon in the game. This simplicity is one of the main reasons why Pokémon is generally a very popular game to stream. It also easily engages a wide audience as there are many customisable parts of the game such as Pokémon team choices and custom names for your team members. The nostalgia it instills in adults along with the familiarity of the game’s rules to younger gamers (many of whom have played the newer games in the franchise), helps hugely in allowing the game to receive mass audience appeal.

Popular webcomic XKCD makes a mention of Twitch Plays Pokemon.

Reaction to The Stream

Just looking at the stream itself, picking out meme culture is difficult. It is better described as a massive multiplayer phenomenon. The ripple effects caused by the stream however, have traveled across the vast online ocean. News of the game have been all over both physical and online media, ranging from gaming specific news sites to more mainstream news outlets such as BBC News, The Guardian and The Washington Post.

By taking a look at one of the main hubs of the TPP community, you can start to see how TPP reaction correlates more closely with traditional meme culture. Within the loyal, many thousand strong community, there’s strategists, artists, writers and many, many jokers all taking part in making this stream just that little bit more special. Most surprisingly however, is the religious, almost cultist undertones which embody much of the community. Many people started idolising the ‘helix fossil’, an inanimate object found in the game, preaching how their object makes a far better God than any other inanimate object. The community even went as far as to nickname their most powerful Pokémon ‘Bird Jesus’, partially based on the random letters picked for the Pokémon’s name. There’s also been numerous popular posts showing the stream being aired in places ranging from living rooms, to public libraries.

The Pokémon messiah. By Yellowfur. 

Along with most of the knowingly silly reactions, there is also a more serious, dedicated team that continuously updates a live feed of what is happening in the game. This dedicated sect of the community that takes literally hours out of their day so that the rest of the community can get on with their lives without worrying about missing anything, sums up how important a phenomena this game currently is to thousands of people.

Where are we Now? 

Until the players complete the game more mayhem, more silliness and definitely more preaching about virtual fossils is wholly expected. As the game currently stands, the ‘players’ have managed to get impressively far. Even after getting stuck for days on simple tasks that would ordinarily take minutes, they never gave up hope and continue to trundle on through the last few difficulties in the game. If they continue at the rate they’re currently going they will complete the game in the next few days. It turns out if you give enough Pokémon loving monkeys enough controllers, in around two weeks you can see what you thought was previously impossible, 100,000 trainers making up a robotic Pokémon master.

The Object that has guided the trainers to victory so far. 
Via Reddit user TopChickenz

If you enjoyed reading this blog post you may also be interested in our previous meme posts.

If you’re interested in knowing some more in depth info about what has happened throughout the stream this a great place to start. If you want to watch the TPP stream LIVE you can find it here. Good luck young trainer and let Helix guide you.