I grew up in the Pokémon era. I remember playing Pokémon Yellow
on my Gameboy and battling neighborhood kids via our link cables. Pokémon was
such a huge part of my childhood and shaped who I am as an adult.
If you told seven-year-old me that there
would be a day where thousands of fans around the internet would be playing one
single game of Pokémon together, I would have laughed and told you that you
were crazy.
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Twitch
Plays Pokémon, according to Know Your Meme,
is a social experiment on the video-streaming platform Twitch. The basis of the
idea is that anyone anywhere can control the main character of Pokémon Red via
typing commands (A, B, Left, Right, Up, Down, and Start) in the chat room box.
The twist to this story is that there were thousands of other players doing the
same thing at the same time.
Late last month, millions of players crowded the room and inputted various
directions. The room would automatically translate this text into game
commands. I actually joined the game early on, but found it frustrating to
control and watch as Red, the main character, continued to circle around the
Pokémon Center, accomplishing nothing. Highly doubting that thousands of people
could cooperate together long enough to finish a game, I gave up on the
experiment and left the chat.
But I was wrong. It was not a failed experiment by any
means.
For the past two weeks, players worked through the puzzles,
the gym leaders, the helix fossil, and the overall general chaos to eventually
work through the entire game and defeat Red’s rival, Blue. It only took 16
days, 7 hours and 45 minutes to do so, according to Recode.
The question remains: Will this be a one hit wonder, or will
mega collaborative gaming be the next big thing in the realm of gaming?
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