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Pixel War on Reddit: we also update you on the epic battle between France and Spain and its outcome

The Reddit /r/Place game has ended. On April 4th and 5th the whole disappeared pixel art, which had arisen in the days before, and was replaced by nothingness. And that was the end of a pixel battle between French and Spanish streamers.

The iconic white rectangle with no pixel graphics is still there. Anyone who visits Reddit on Tuesday, April 5 might be surprised by the trip to /r/Place. The magnificent fresco made up of a multitude of pixelated mosaics has disappeared. National flags, manga characters, streamer emblems, and /r/place are all gone.

No one has used the board since April 5, 2022, when the /r/Place collaboration experience ended. “Thank you to everyone who contributed. The most incredible thing has been the friendships we've made along the way," read a note from the admin posted around 1am.

A turf war

However, neither French nor Spanish netizens are confident that they made good friends across the Pyrenees after completing /r/Place, and there is no indication that the Spanish have strengthened their ties with our community. Because today everything on r/Place is white because just 24 hours ago it was a bloody Franco-Spanish conflict.

Let's get back to the objective of the game. Every five minutes, Reddit users can fill a white space with small colored tiles as part of a social experiment with Place. Internet users were not afraid pixel art create and coordinate. This is what the web looked like at the end of the event and enabled the design. To protect it from being stolen by other communities, it was also important to defend its borders.

Pixel War on Reddit

The sandpit was limited, and that created conflict. In order to expand, one had to invade the neighbor's space, which could lead to violent confrontations. Typically, the conflict ended with either the annexation of land or a truce that allowed everyone to regain their own pixel art project (thanks to the Twitch representatives, the communities discussed things among themselves).

In many areas of the map everything went like clockwork. But not in the lower left quadrant.

A terrible Franco-Spanish battle

Because the French have chosen to settle and firmly establish themselves in this lower left corner of the map. The Twitch community was provided with a surface by the French and lasted until the end of /r/Place thanks to an excellent night rotation. the pixel art has created many winks in the picture.

In fact, a major Franco-Spanish conflict took place in this area, more specifically, a dispute between the main French Twitch streamers and their Spanish counterparts over who controls the vast amount of pixels.

In the night from Sunday to Monday we had already experienced a "pixel war" when the weekend was over. We then talked about Reddit and how French streamers were fighting for their virtual turf after describing the "pixel war". This was not crowned with success; the conflict resumed on Tuesday evening.

A terrible Franco-Spanish battle

Despite what happened the day before, nothing could have prepared us for a protracted battle throughout the day and night.

Don't touch Zizou

By live streaming his artwork, Zerator delighted his community by inserting "Easter eggs" - chopsticks - into already completed works rather than defacing something. If this method didn't please everyone because it might alter certain works, the result wasn't so bad. Then, when they presented a problem, the chopsticks were removed.

Meanwhile, streamers like Kameto and others overlaid the French flag with a layer that pixel art contained: The Louvre Museum on the left, Jinx from the anime series Arcane on top, Reginald de Ratatouille and his spoon on the right, Thomas Pesquet is in the middle. Above it all is Daft Punk… Last but not least, Zizou's eyebrows – Zinedine Zidane was chosen as France's door flag.

On the second day, the French were better prepared and knew what to expect. The front was reinforced by other streamers who were not present the day before. Domingo, Squeezie, Rivenzi, Sardoche or other Discord personalities could be heard in the background. Her community also supported her by being willing to help when needed.

Pixel war on reddit

Let's start with the fact that Monday night was busy. While this pixel battle was initially friendly, it soon became much more serious, as the French streamer noted at the beginning of the evening. Things took an even more personal turn as each side refused to let go or even try to find common ground about their vanities.

For some strange reason, the Spanish community around streamers Ibai and Rubius seemed to have only one goal in the end: the French one pixel art to move into the dirt, or maybe settle down there entirely. In any case, they gave that impression by their constant return.

Some felt the pixel war had degenerated into a first-person competition as Rubius and Kameto, each with over 18 million Twitter followers, were unable to lose face against a French streamer with "only" 662.000 followers. It's the same story on Twitch or YouTube. A small streamer was no match for a large one.

The Spaniards built partnerships.

However, it has been found that the size of the community is not as important as its engagement. It seems that Twitch streamers in France have gotten used to working together on various projects, including eSports and charity events (like Zlan and Zevent), or just going out for a night out.

Both types of streamers are familiar with each other and used to long streaming marathons (for those who know the Zevent: it's no surprise, since it's a multi-day event where guests are supposed to stick around for as long as possible to catch a support a humanitarian cause, be it Amnesty International or Action Against Hunger).

That was because the French were well prepared, organized and motivated. The villages, on the other hand, seemed less familiar with this type of activity. This was evident in Ibai and Rubius' efforts to gain an advantage by trying to quickly partner with streamers or even BTS itself.

The Spaniards created alliances

The acronym BTS stands for the most important representative of K-Pop. This South Korean music group is extremely popular all over the world, especially among young people. BTS audiences have proven to be influential in the past, moving quickly and with a lot of force. Rubius had a Machiavellian strategy in mind and was sure it would succeed.

To beat France, a Spanish streamer painted a music group's emblem on the white stripes of the Spanish national flag. He understood that forcing Kameto, Zerator, and the other Cleansers into action was inevitable. It was then enough to "cut off" this cleaning action as evidence of the French streamers' hostility towards BTS.

Rubius, who, following his call on Twitter, encouraged people to draw the BTS logo to get outside help.

By the end of the night, everyone knew the clock was going to give us trouble. As those supporting the region's defenses fell asleep, the night was sure to be terrible. Above all, nobody wanted to mess with the Americans, who might have been Spanish allies.

The French were determined not to give up as proved by Hasan Abi, Mizkif and xQc. They had proven this the previous day by fending off hundreds of pixel attacks and their pixel art identical, if not better, rebuilds. Initiating a new fight against the French carried the risk of retaliation for their own works of art.

Negotiations then resumed in earnest.

Rubius contacted Mizkif to convince him of his point of view. He said he's been watching her channel for a long time and offered her 50 Twitch subscriptions (subs). He promised to be there for him if needed and the French considered his gestures towards fans disingenuous and a disgusting sign that he was willing to make any concessions in order to succeed.

The Americans were called to the rescue by the Spanish and helped.

Mizkif was initially reluctant and refused to invest in Rubius, thinking his venture would fail. On the French side, the decision not to communicate with the Spanish was made quickly. France felt the opposing streamers were making a "drama" out of something that didn't concern them at all: the pixel art production on /r/Place.

When the North American players exited the voice call and saw Kameto standing alone, they wanted to know what he meant by "visiting himself for a moment" in the voice call. "What did they create?" Kameto asked the Americans to show him the work of Ibai or Rubius on the fresco: “We had to face reality; the Spanish streamers have not been able to create anything permanent.” The French made fun of him.

The idea that the French were expanding too quickly and claiming too much land was originally based on a misunderstanding. According to Hasan Abi, he really believed that, because the Germans proved to be more talented, their flag is narrower and, most importantly, they opened up new opportunities on excellent terms.

For a while, HasanAbi tried unsuccessfully to find a compromise between the two camps.

By the time the lower part of /r/Place was opened, the French had already taken it. It was now a pristine environment. The Spaniards could have set up their zone elsewhere instead. The French tried to free up another sector on the opposite side of the square, hoping that anyone could enter. "Free" was in big letters next to "free"

As the hours went by, the situation grew worse and worse: the prank had long since been overtaken by fierce competition for posting rights in the lower-left quadrant of /r/Place. Spanish streamers, on the other hand, have been accused of lack of pride because of allegations of cheating on the French side.

The Method of the Seasons

The French have been accused of cheating the game by using scripts and bots to automate their activities from the start. When it turned out that the Kameto camp employed many layers (or "overlays") to place the colored tiles correctly and to restore the patterns when damaged, the dispute was ended.

Even though the planes were only used as pointers, they were quite useful. There wasn't a moment when the visual tools moved the roof tiles themselves. It was the community that used a rather sophisticated rotation system to place the roof tiles (four teams cleaned the area as soon as they were called). The goal was not to use up all the pixels at once to avoid another attack. This method has always worked successfully.

The Spaniards have also come under fire for automating their tasks and not using passive planes. Sardoche tweeted a video claiming that Ibai used a tool to generate the BTS logo over and over again. "This is cheating, Ibai," he told her.

1 am: The beginning of the end is near.

The pixel conflict raged for hours, with each side growing angrier. It was one o'clock in the morning when everyone's jaws dropped: no colored tiles worked anymore, apart from the all-white tiles. We realize that this is not a bug, but simply the beginning of the fall of /r/Place, which was designed as a short-term location for pixel art was intended. Everything will disappear and the canvas will be blank again.

The French, on the other hand, were disappointed. Since most of the fighting took place in the shaky hex (for attacking and defending), the entire region was wiped out in a matter of minutes. The automated technique has been credited to the Spanish, who developed a white field shortly thereafter.

For a while, HasanAbi tried unsuccessfully to find a compromise between the two camps.

The Spaniards may have been overjoyed at this unusual outcome. That was it, finally the French were defeated. Since there is a joke on the internet that claims the French are clearly cowards and never gave up in battle, their tricolor was changed to their proper flag, the white banner.

Rubius and Ibai have pushed each other to the limit, even if it means setting Twitch and Reddit on fire. Tweets were published making fun of the French, with funny pictures. Even the Wikipedia page on France was destroyed to allow RubiusLand to be put in its place, as if Rubius had won.

We find satisfaction where we can!

The Spaniards were ecstatic, believing they had won the battle. They had threatened to stay in France if their demands were not met. Even after others had offered them a new home, no matter how much that would help them. Despite the fact that nothing could be achieved with the streamers from Spain.

On the French side, the shutdown of /r/Place did not go as planned. It was not foreseeable when the platform would be shut down in this way. Unfortunately, just as the Kameto teams were trying to boot everything back up, the wipe came back. It was too late; it was all over now. The final image would be a field of devastation with the flag amidst the rubble. We had them pixel art lost, but not the three shades.

The French, like the Spaniards, are convinced that they have won. And it's conceivable that the French will triumph in the long run, as streamers in France pride themselves on two things: First, they have theirs pixel art for many hours, and second, they didn't spend much of the event destroying other people's work. The French community has amazed viewers around the world.

In 2022, the unusual and remarkable story of the fresco in the lower left corner ended.

With the French competition finally winding down with the approaching nothingness, Kameto made one last vociferous appeal for the Americans to put an end to their animosity and maybe shake hands virtually as a sign of respect and because everyone still had fun in the end. This is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects.

Rubius also tweeted his appreciation for the French, stating that he would be willing to meet up with them again in five years, like /r/Place.

/r/Place 2022 is long gone, but the memorabilia, the meme chaos and, most importantly, the French panache remain. See you at the World Cup!

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