Twitch Plays Pokémon began five years ago - Polygon - Centralized Autonomous Organization

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2019/2/12/18221792/twitch-plays-pokemon-anniversary

On Feb. 12, 2014, Twitch Plays Pokémon began with a strange but simple premise. The pitch: A Twitch bot would play and complete Pokémon Red, controlled entirely by viewers who ordered the bot to press certain buttons by typing commands in the live chat. Chaos of the most entertaining order broke out. Thousands overran the chat with simplistic orders of button inputs in the hopes of getting this bot to capture, name, battle, and heal Pokémon.

Twitch Plays Pokémon demanded frequent check-ins and hours of participation from viewers. It was an event stream unlike most others on Twitch — think something rare and akin to Ninja playing Fortnite with Drake live — and Twitch Plays Pokémon ran it on an aggressively daily basis.

It soon spawned memes (praise Helix), and viewers even helped to evolve the bot’s functionality. After more and more people tuned in, the whole “yell which buttons the bot should press” thing didn’t quite work anymore. So instead, the stream’s host allowed the group to argue in favor of anarchy or democracy, two play styles that would have their own dramatic impacts on the stream’s interactivity.

Twitch Plays Pokémon “changed Twitch forever” in that way, as Twitch Studios director Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham put it this morning in honor of the iconic stream’s fifth birthday.

“TPP not only inspired an entire generation of Pokemon fans, but it directly inspired Twitch,” Graham tweeted in a thread reminiscing about the event stream. “TPP proved that the medium of Twitch was (and still is) ripe for innovation, and that there are new and excited ways to create interactive content that has never been done before.”

“TPP created a movement,” Graham continued. “It changed the way people thought about the content they can and could create on Twitch. It changed the way that people thought about the impact that a viewer could have on an experience. It also made the impossible seem possible, Twitch beat the game.” And it took thousands of viewers almost an entire month to do so.

The dynamics have changed, and the “game” works differently now, with players receiving things like tokens and badges to increase their influence. Twitch Plays Pokémon operates on a seasonal schedule, and at this point, it’s played nearly every Pokémon game, leaving the group to try out fan games instead. Most controversially, the original, anonymous creator of Twitch Plays Pokémon left the community in 2017 following alleged attempts to dox anothe r member; a group of players handle the current streams.

Amid all the change, there’s still something wonderful about watching a bunch of people play single-player Pokémon together. Graham and the rest of the Twitch Plays Pokémon community will hang out on the still-thriving channel today to celebrate the event’s birthday. (The bot is currently playing a fan-made Pokémon game, Pokémon Burning FireRed.) You can watch the original event in its entirety in the playlist below.

Comments

I recall reading once about how TPP led to Twitch improving its chat functions when so many requests are being sent at once. I am not sure if this led to the moderation functions or not.

But as for ‘lasting impact’, my guess is that things changed more behind the scenes for Twitch.

I was gonna say the same thing. Can’t believe it’s already been that long. It’s still the only thing that comes to mind w/e I read about twitch.

My favorite TPP memory is when my roommate wouldn’t shut up about the memes and talking the whole thing up and I told him that, contrary to his belief, nobody would remember or care about TPP in six months’ time, whereupon he set a notification on his phone to go off in six months and if he was not regularly watching whatever the current "Twitch Plays" game was, I would win. Six months later, the notification went off and neither of us could remember why he set it, but I eventually did remember and I won.

It started being kind of amusing to watch, simply because it was thousands of people trying to play a game.

…Then the whole movement where the actively tried to prevent the game from being played pretty much soured the entire experience. And thus my disdain for TPP began.

Later on, I found out that once they got to Pokemon Black and White 2, mods had to put their foot down, basically saying that either they actually play the game, or they shut it down entirely. Sweet, sweet karma.

By Cobaltios on 02.12.19 2:35pm

I was going to a video game focused college at the time, and that shit was on every computer screen in the building like it was the world cup. It was a magical time.

Even while it was happening I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that couldn’t be replicated. I’m glad that channel is still going and people are having fun, but the phenomenon was contained in that first playthrough and I kind of love that. I was there when it happened. All the legends and lore that sprouted from it was amazing to watch.

I adore what the first Twitch Plays Pokemon stream did, but my favorite moment (especially in rewatching) was when they did Pokemon Gold afterward. You can watch the moment on YouTube, and it’s great; they throw their Master Ball at a Goldeen, and you can see the commands just stop DEAD as everyone registers what happened.