Earlier this year, the world held its breath as Twitch played Pokémon, and if you wondered just how massive a phenomenon that experience was, the numbers are in, and they’re impressive.

While at PAX, researcher and data scientist Alex Leavitt released some numbers collected during the live stream of Twitch’s open source playthrough of Pokémon Red/Blue for Game Boy. Here are some of the most interesting facts:

• At its peak, Twitch Plays Pokémon had 121,000 concurrent viewers
• At some points during Twitch Plays Pokémon, the stream was the most-viewed on the platform, and accounted for 20 percent of all viewers on Twitch
• The stream received a total of nine million unique views. By comparison, the Stanley Cup finals was viewed by six million people
• The stream received more than 36 million unique views
• The total view time on the stream was more than one billion minutes
• More than 50 million messages were sent in the stream's chat box

For a deeper look into Twitch Plays Pokémon, read our analysis of the mythos that developed during the livestream.

[Source: Polygon]

Our Take
This is impressive. I remember a lot of people talking about Twitch Plays Pokémon when it was happening, but I didn't realize that it had taken up that much mindshare. I just goes to show how popular video games have gotten in the last few decades.