Fish Plays Pokemon: Watch the Live Stream on Twitch

                     Official picture of 'Fish plays Pokemon' created by Reddit user Sundreamers

A fish plays Pokemon on Twitch, and people go nuts. Over 2 million people have tuned into the live stream to see Grayson (the fish) move about in his fish bowl and play Pokemon -- or so we are told. But it gives the people something to watch during times of extreme boredom. There is no sound to this live stream, because Beta fish can't be heard underwater without an extremely sensitive microphone.

A screenshot of a fish plays Pokemon

How Fish Plays Pokemon was Born

Catherine Moresco and Patrick Facheris combined brains to come up with the idea for this brilliant idea for HackNY. They decided to assign 9 quadrants of a fish bowl to a corresponding button on a traditional Nintendo Gameboy. Whenever the fish moves from one quadrant to another, it will then press the corresponding button or arrow to move the player in the Pokemon game. The result is a fish playing Pokemon.

To everyone's surprise, Grayson has already won one battle in Pokemon already with his Charmander (a fire salamander) named 'AAAABBK', during the 160 hours of gameplay logged so far (as of 08/08/14 at 8:14 p.m.). Sometimes the fish does not move, and that is attributed to when he sleeps, because fish sleep too, ya know!

So he has a name, and his name is Grayson Hopper. Grayson is a beta fish. Some fans of the live stream want a goldfish, and have expressed so much in the live stream chat window. The owners of the live stream (Catherine Moresco and Patrick Facheris) have indicated in the "Streaming Info" section that the live stream may be down while they make upgrades.

Upgrades to Fish Plays Pokemon

In the "Streaming Info" section, Catherine Moresco and Patrick Facheris share that Grayson plays and lives in a dorm room, and there is not a dedicated light for Grayson, which would mean the live stream is very dark during sleeping hours. The owners are getting him a dedicated lamp, and they are going to improve the quality of the live stream.

Updates: On August 8, 2014, the live stream owners state that the live stream will be down for two hours while Grayson's host moves. The stream came back up around 8:34 p.m. Central Time on August 8, 2014.