Twitch Plays Pokémon is a "social experiment" and channel on the video streaming website Twitch, consisting of a crowdsourced attempt to play Game Freak's and Nintendo's 1996 role-playing video game Pokémon Red, by parsing commands sent by users through the channel's chat room. Developed by an anonymous Australian programmer and launched on 12 February 2014, the stream became unexpectedly popular, reaching an average concurrent viewership of over 80,000 viewers (with at least 10% participating). On 1 March 2014, the game was completed after 16 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds, after the final battle with the rival Blue was won. By the end, the stream had reached a total of over 35.500 million views overall, peaking at 120,000 concurrent viewers, and an estimated 650,000 users having participated. The experiment was met with attention by media outlets (and even staff members of the website itself) for its interactivity, its erratic and chaotic nature, the unique challenges fac.. …