The Victory of "Twitch Plays Pokémon"

Ben Sherry ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer
On February 13th, 2014, a dream was born. That dream was one that would unite people all over the world in an attempt to beat the game Pokémon Red. This dream was born on Twitch Plays Pokémon, a website that allows any number of users to control a single game of Pokémon by typing commands into a chat box. Twitch has taken the world by storm since it’s humble beginnings, at times attracting an audience of over 100,000 people; the game has proven to be incredibly popular. People play the game by typing commands such as ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘a’, or ‘b’ into the comment section of the stream. These commands are then inputted into the game itself.
Many thought that it would be impossible to beat the game with so many people and so many contradictory commands being inputted at the same time. Those people might have been correct if it hadn’t been for the addition of the anarchy/democracy system. That system operates so that whichever mode has the most votes is the mode the game currently operates in. Anarchy works just as it sounds; every command gets a chance to be used. In democracy mode, each input gets a certain number of votes. The command with the highest amount of votes is the one that goes through into the system.
Many people didn’t like the addition of the democracy system and allied themselves into a quasi-religion that praised the Helix fossil (An item that could not be discarded) and committed themselves to a life of anarchy. Many different political parties and religions popped up over the crazy 390 hours that the game was played, while every Pokémon in Red, the players’, team were given odd nicknames like “ATV” or “The Fonz” and expansive backstories. People began to grow quite attached to these characters, creating tons of fan-art and fiction for them.  Eventually the naysayers were proven wrong when Red got to the Elite Four and became the Pokémon master, with his team being put in the hall of fame on Mar 1st.
Many people were brought together by this undertaking and didn’t want it to end; lucky for them, the game has moved on to Generation 2, with Pokémon Crystal, so the adventure never has to end!
Did you play Twitch Plays Pokémon? Let us know in the comments!