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An Anonymous Coward writes:

A social phenomenon sprung up overnight in 2014 when over a million people played Pokemon Red via Twitch chat, an event called Twitch Plays Pokemon [wikipedia.org]. The viewers of the stream would input commands into the chat, which would then be translated into the game. The viewers managed to finish the game, which led to similar projects with different games and different input methods, one of which uses live animals such as fish to trigger inputs which then play a game. The movements of the fish are then mapped onto buttons on a controller, effectively allowing the fish to control the game. This is not much different to using a lava lamp and a laser to generate random numbers. YouTube streamer Mutekimaru has this system in place for his fish, and when he left them to play Pokemon Violet by themselves the Pokemon game crashed and the input from the fish was applied to the console’s home menu. This led to the fish purchasing 500 yen in eShop credit, downloading an app, and spending the credits [news.com.au] on a profile icon. The fish also changed Mutekimaru’s profile name and shutdown the console.

Imagine trying to explain this to your parents. Some fish were playing a console game....

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