'Twitch Plays Pokemon' was a gaming phenomenon unlike anything else before it. It took a game that millions upon million of fans have already played and presented it in an entirely new light. It turned a single-player RPG from 20 years ago into a community event - and, somehow, thousands of people playing simultaneously managed to complete the game.
Since then, Twitch Plays has evolved in a number of different ways. More Pokemon games were beaten, Dark Souls was conquered and a goldfish once took over for the chat. If anything, the various Twitch Plays have proven that gamers want to play together...especially if the reward is something worth fighting for.
For example, popular Twitch streamer Jericho recently competed in Totino's 'Bucking Couch Bowl': instead of simply playing Super Smash Bros. on a regular couch, Jericho's seat was built on top of a mechanical bull. That sounds dangerous enough on its own, but when control of the bull was given to the Twitch chat...well, it went about as well as you'd expect.
Spoiler alert: Jericho gets annihilated. Getting tossed off a mechanical bull is tough on its own, and doing it with a face full of pizza rolls probably doesn't help much.
At the very least, Jericho's bodily harm was a big hit: a Totinos representative told GameSpot that the stream brought in more than 310,000 viewers, while roughly 167,000 commands were sent to the mechanical couch. Sadly, Jericho didn't end up winning the event (the trophy went to Twitch streamer summit1G), but who knows - maybe the Bucking Couch Bowl will make a return in 2017...
You can find more of Jericho's videos over at his YouTube and Twitch channels.
