Twitch (twitch.tv) is a highly popular streaming website that gamers have been using since 2011.
Twitch offers gamers a free way to stream their gameplay live to other interested gamers. Viewers can comment in real-time with Twitch’s instant messaging board, adding to the sometimes humorous commentary of the players.

Twitch has even been used to live stream gaming competitions, such has the PC game “Starcraft II.”
Lately, however, Twitch has taken on a new stream named “Twitch Plays Pokemon” that has been going on for more than 10 days.

What could this person possibly be playing for that long? It is not a person, but persons. Everyone who watches the live stream is a player.

The setup is simple. A live stream of the classic Gameboy title “Pokemon: Red” was put up, and anyone watching it with an account can enter a function such as “up,” “down,” “a,” “b,” and so on.
The game eventually reads the input and causes the in-game avatar to do the action associated with that button.

Keep in mind, anyone watching can input an action, and it has a steady stream of more than 50,000 viewers at one time most of the days.

Since the streams birth, the goal was to just beat the game. In the process, multiple Internet “memes” and other jokes have arisen, such as the worshipping of the in-game item the “Helix Fossil.”

All in all this has turned into a long drawn out social experiment for the Internet and users have been enjoying it thoroughly. At some points Twitch’s website had trouble operating due to the overage of viewers on the stream.

A few days in it added a “democracy” and “anarchy” mode to control the chaos. “Anarchy” mode is the classic mode where actions are input immediately and “democracy” mode chooses the most popular action voted on in 20 seconds. It seems to have helped push forward the progress of the game, though only a little bit.

At this point players are about halfway through the game, give or take, with Pokemon ranging from level 21 to level 61. With no end in sight, the community pushes on in hopes to beat the game.
Recently a new game has joined “Pokemon.” “The Legend of Zelda,” the classic NES game, went up on Sunday, and players seem to be stuck in the first dungeon. Maybe it will get just as popular as Pokemon, but it has a lot to live up to.

At this rate, I imagine that more classic games will start to pop up on Twitch and be playable in this format. Realistically, how many games can be played like this and actually completed?
Check it out yourself on twitch.tv. You can search it by typing “twitch plays Pokemon” into the search bar and join the excitement.

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