A YouTube streamer in Japan who goes under the name @MutekimaruChannel has built up a loyal following from live-streaming Pokemon games. The thing is, he doesn’t play the games, his fish do. Mutekimaru first tried this out during the start of the pandemic but continued as his popularity grew. Plus he doesn’t even have to stay home and play, as his fish handles that. What he did is set up a system that allows fish to control the game by swimming over button prompts. Of course, it takes a little longer for his fish to progress in the game, compared to a human or maybe a monkey player. But don’t worry as Mutekimaru says he rotates fish out every 12 hours to not affect their health.

Then one day, while a fish were playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet on the Nintendo Switch, Mutekimaru had to go out for a bit. The game happened to crash after he left. Then several fish moved in and started screwing with the sound settings. Then they managed to get into the Nintendo eShop, where they exposed Mutekimaru’s credit card into to his stream viewers and added 500 yen (around $4 USD) to his digital wallet. The fish then managed to get into the Switch Online app and redeemed some login bonuses.

Mutekimaru has since locked down his credit card and asked Nintendo for a refund. Let’s hope his fish go back to enjoying the game and don’t get addicted to microtransactions.

For more fish with hobbies, check out the man who trains his goldfish to play soccer.