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Twitch Plays Pokemon final stats: 1.1 million players, 36 million views
Twitch has announced the final statistics for cultural phenomenon Twitch Plays Pokemon, which came to a dramatic close earlier today. And while only one pokemon trainer can be the very best, more than 1.1 million people tried. The actual number of TPP "players" - as in, those who entered commands in the game's chat - totaled 1,165,140, according to the Twitch official blog. As if that weren't quite ridiculous enough, here's some more rare candy to chew on: Total time: 16 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds Peak players: 121,000 Commands issued: More than 122 million Onlookers: More than 9 million Total views: More than 36 million Total minutes watched: More than 1 billion For reference, the total number of views is more than twice that of Shanghai, the city with the highest recorded population in the world. Granted those aren't all unique views, but that's still a freaking lot of views. Unofficial stats have also been collected by the community, for those who'd like to know just when each magical moment transpired. According to one account, it took Twitch Plays Pokemon 22 tries to beat the Elite Four. It only took them two tries to beat Blue, the game's archenemy. Two! The weight of TPP cannot be overstated - aside from the various memes and religions it's created, there's even a petition to have the US government officially recognize March 1 as Helix Day. Praise Helix. [Image: The Pokemon Company]
Twitch slays Pokemon after two weeks of non-stop action [Update: New game on Sunday]
The livestreamed crowd-play event Twitch Plays Pokemon has ended, as thousands of players pooled their efforts to defeat the Elite Four in Pokemon Red. The game was completed after 16 days of consecutive play and saw over 35 million viewers during that time. Twitch Plays Pokemon is a Pokemon Red mod that allowed Twitch viewers to control the game's main character Red by entering commands in the streaming platform's chat window. The event began on February 12 and reached 75,000 concurrent viewers after five days of play. There were plenty of doubts that players would even be able to cross the Safari Zone in the game, let alone view its ending credits, though the game's creator told Joystiq that "even when played very poorly it is difficult to not make some progress in Pokemon." The community that gathered around Twitch Plays Pokemon upheld a narrative that extended beyond Pokemon Red's initial scope and included the Twitter-trending Bird Jesus (Pidgeot) and the spiritual consultant and deity Lord Helix (Omanyte). Joystiq also talked with MIT associate professor T.L. Taylor about the event's place in network and game culture, who said it tapped into "something I think is very compelling. So I don't think we're going to see [crowd-play] go away as a genre." Considering how entertaining this has been, we certainly hope not. Update: As it turns out, the Twitch Plays Pokemon stream now features a countdown timer ticking away roughly 26 hours and 25 minutes as of this writing that notes, "A new adventure will begin." That pegs the start of what seems to be the next version of Twitch Plays Pokemon at 7:00 a.m. EST Sunday morning. [Image: The Pokemon Company]
Twitch Plays Pokemon: Its history, highlights and Bird Jesus
The Internet is a bizarre, confusing and sometimes wonderful place. Nowhere and no-when has that been more evident than now, as the world watches Twitch Plays Pokemon. For those not yet swept up in the madness, Twitch Plays Pokemon is the 1998 GameBoy game Pokemon Red being emulated on a computer, streamed to the masses. Those who tune in can enter the game's commands – up, down, left, right, A, B, start – in the Twitch channel chat, and said commands will be translated into in-game results. You type "up," the main character moves up. Simple, right? Not quite when you have 70,000 people typing out often-contradictory commands. The infinite monkey theorem – a mathematical principle that has existed in some form or interpretation since Aristotle – has often been taken to mean, "If an infinite number of monkeys were to use an infinite number of typewriters, sooner or later you get Shakespeare." Well brother, this ain't that. This is 70,000 monkeys wrestling for control of one typewriter, while another group of monkeys interprets the words printed as holy gospel. And no, the religious imagery is not an exaggeration, as you'll soon see. Like a Rattata in Team Rocket Headquarters, we've dug our way through Twitch Plays Pokemon to bring you some of the best, the funniest, the weirdest memes and moments created by this intriguing display of unbridled creativity.
