Fun and Games: Online Pokemon revival kindles nostalgia, global community

In the past few weeks, an Internet fad has brought tens of thousands of people together to accomplish a single goal: to play “Pokemon.”

More specifically, these communal gamers have come together to try to play the exact same game of “Pokemon” all at the same time — with some unexpectedly hilarious outcomes.

The video-game-streaming website Twitch.tv has hosted a channel for more than 17 days now that constantly streams a game of “Pokemon” in which any site member can take part. While the first game in the “Pokemon” series has already been beaten by those taking part in the phenomenon, the stream moderator has uploaded the next game in the series for players to begin working through. Members are able to control the in-game character by inputting various commands one could employ on a Nintendo Game Boy (up, left, A, B, start, etc.) to control the single unnamed protagonist of the popular monster-catching video game first released in the late 1990s.

The catch is that, with about 70,000 people trying to conduct the activities of a single character at any given point in time, this isn’t exactly the simplest task. Thousands of inputs are processed by the game every minute, meaning that many cancel each other out or go un-implemented while others are conducted.

Most of the time, the protagonist simply walks in circles and repeats conversations ad nauseam with other in-game characters. At the most exciting points of this endeavor, the mob of online players has accidentally thrown away useful items and released the team’s beloved “Pokemon” from its control. But, surprisingly, the group has managed to unite strongly enough to advance the protagonist through major plot points of the game.

It would seem that the vast majority of people who’ve followed this proclaimed “social experiment” have shown up initially because of the immense nostalgic value that the “Pokemon” series inspires in the hearts of all us proverbial ’90s kids. Many of us — myself, included — grew up with these games, which have evolved with each new release on the way to selling more than 200 million copies around the world.

The vast majority of people who keep up with the stream’s progress, however, stay to take part in the literal society that has developed at an astoundingly rapid pace within the confines of a single webpage.

After days of players arguing, a system of governance developed within the game’s code to aid site members in achieving progress in the game. A community formed on the popular social media site Reddit to chronicle the progress of the game’s protagonist. A faux religion loosely based on Christianity spawned from frequent humorous “consultations” of a rarely usable item — if you’re curious about the details, quickly Google “Lord Helix” or “Bird Jesus,” you’ll be glad you did.

The stream even suffered a number of “terrorist attacks” in which Twitch site members led rebellions to intentionally hinder the progress of the game.

Against all odds, this past weekend the TwitchPlaysPokemon followers managed to complete the game’s main objective of defeating the final and most challenging set of “Pokemon” teams in exactly 16 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds of continuous gameplay. The game drew in more than 1.1 million players who sent a total of more than 122 million game commands, according to the Twitch PR director in a release posted to the website’s official blog. 

What I found most amazing about all of this is how games have an immeasurable power to bring people together. For further evidence, look at the recently ended Olympic games in Sochi, Russia: Despite immense disparity in political outlooks and human-rights issues, the countries of the world are able to come together every other year to celebrate the love of competition that humanity shares.

In the same vein, TwitchPlaysPokemon has used the Internet to create a similar connection of the world’s varied societies to share in our common humanity. Though it’s merely a bunch of video-game lovers sitting at computer screens pushing a few buttons, this phenomenon should be renowned for the profound impact it has had on the social community embodied by the Internet.