{"id":4529,"date":"2014-04-02T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4529"},"modified":"2014-03-25T15:56:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T19:56:17","slug":"the-preservation-of-twitch-plays-pokemon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4529","title":{"rendered":"The Preservation of Twitch Plays Pok\u00e9mon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing on the history of video games is not a new field. Numerous books and website have dissected and investigated the nearly sixty years since a group of MIT students created\u00a0Spacewar!<\/em> in the early 1960’s. However, the recent phenomenon of Twitch Plays\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon (TPP) falls outside the normal realm of video game history.<\/p>\n

On February 12, 2014, an Australian programmer created a twitch stream of one of the original Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0games (the author used a hacked version of the game that made all 151\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon available so it was neither\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Red or Blue). The creator used script commands that allowed the users in the comments to command the game by entering “a”, “b”, “left”, “right”, “up”, “down”, “start” and “select”. The game gained a MASSIVE audience very quickly. With more than 100,000 people simultaneously controlling “Red” (the main character) at its peak. In all honesty, at the onset it seemed like the game would never be completed as so many people controlling one game made relatively trivial tasks like walking by ledges and using cut half a day events. However, after 16 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds, the hivemind of Twitch Plays\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon defeated “Blue” at the end of the Elite Four and beat the game. Taken from a statement from Twitch itself<\/a>, which I highly encourage reading if just to realize how big this craze became, here are some by the numbers findings on TPP.<\/p>\n

“By the numbers:<\/p>\n