Tetris is a hugely popular video game in which players must fit blocks of various shapes into a limited space as they fall from the sky, at an ever-increasing speed. Although the gameplay is simple to master, its history is far more complex and interesting than it might seem at first glance. In this Euroinnova article, we tell you the exciting story of Tetris, from its conception in the Soviet Union to the present day, where the society The video game industry has evolved rapidly.
The birth of Tetris in the Soviet Union
Alexey Pajitnov is a software engineer known worldwide for inventing Tetris in 1984. The spread and rise in popularity of this classic in the world of video games was accidental, and not something Pajitnov had set out to achieve. Whilst working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he was commissioned to test a new type of computer called Electronika 60. With the sole aim of testing the computer’s potential in a light-hearted way, he created Tetris.
When devising the game’s mechanics, Pajitnov drew inspiration from a type of puzzle he used to play as a child – more specifically, a pentomino puzzles. In this pastime, the aim was to fit a series of pieces with predefined shapes into a rectangle with a finite number of square spaces. If you think about it, Tetris is nothing more than an extended, computerised version of this very simple puzzle.
Although Tetris shot to fame almost overnight amongst programmers who owned the Soviet Electronika 60 computer, its graphics were far too rudimentary and its memory capacity was no greater than that of a modern calculator.
The turbulent launch of Tetris in Europe and the US.
Recognising the potential for success in Pajitnov’s idea, Vadim Gerasimov, a maths student who was just 16 at the time, recreated the Tetris game from the Electronika 60 on a an adapted version that could be played on IBM computers, offering improved graphics and greater accessibility for thousands of players. And so this legendary game would go on to make its mark beyond the walls of the Moscow Academy of Sciences.
However, Pajitnov wasn’t seeing a penny from his acclaimed video game, as he hadn’t managed to market it either. Nor would the Soviet legislation of the time have allowed him to profit from it. Even so, rumours reached him from time to time that Tetris was being played in other Eastern Bloc countries.
And that was indeed the case. These suspicions were confirmed when Robert Stein, a Hungarian businessman of Jewish origin, sent a telex (the predecessor to the fax) to Pajitnov containing nothing less than aan invitation to market Tetris in the West. More specifically, what Stein was asking him for was the copyright to the video game in return for a substantial sum of money.
But there were a few obstacles: the USSR did not provide any practical means for its citizens to communicate with the Western world; Pajitnov spoke hardly any English; Stein did not speak Russian; and, furthermore, Pajitnov could end up in prison if the Soviet authorities discovered that he was negotiating with a Western company.
Even so, Pajitnov’s appalling standard of English at the time was good enough for him to send a telex in reply, in which confirmed his interest to reach an agreement with Stein. But first, Pajitnov had to work out how to market his video game through the state.
Meanwhile, Stein received a brief but positive reply from Pajitnov, and decided to take the liberty of producing the video game. But, in reality, Stein had not acquired the copyright necessary to be able to release the game legally. In fact, the copyright did not belong to Pajitnov, but to the Soviet State. In the run-up to its launch, Elektronorgtechnika, the Soviet state organisation responsible for importing and exporting computer hardware and software, reprimanded Stein for attempting to market a video game for which he had not obtained the copyright and warned him that All negotiations had to go through the State.
But Stein, without hesitation, managed to reach an agreement with the USSR, obtaining the necessary permits to to spread Tetris across the whole world. And so, the West was first introduced to Tetris in 1988, in the United States and the United Kingdom. To highlight its foreign origins, the developers set the video game against a backdrop of Kremlin designs and Cyrillic characters.
Tetris goes global
Henk Rogers, another Dutch businessman living in Japan, noticed that Tetris was selling rather well on computers. Rogers was a video game designer with an excellent reputation for both his professional skill and his business acumen. He realised just how popular Tetris could become, so he also reached an agreement with the Soviet Union to launch it in Japan on the Game Boy, a Nintendo console that was part of many of our earliest childhood memories.
The Game Boy version of Tetris flew off the shelves, with no fewer than 35 million units. Nintendo has a great deal to thank Pajitnov for, as he created the game that would make the Game Boy one of the most successful consoles in history. Many believe this version is the best of them all, and Pajitnov himself agrees. The slogan Nintendo used to promote the game was “From Russia with Love”.
From The Tetris Company to the present day
Despite the game’s resounding financial success, Pajitnov still hadn’t seen a single rouble from the sales of the game he had developed. It was not until 1995 that he began to receive the royalties due to him as the creator of Tetris. In 1996, with Pajitnov already living abroad, he and Rogers founded The Tetris Company and, ten years later, bought the privatised Elektronorgtechnika, thereby acquiring full ownership of the video game.
Tetris is currently one of the world’s best-selling video games, with 520 million copies since its release. Pajitnov has developed over a hundred versions. It is a video game with a simple premise, a universal phenomenon that remains timeless and fresh despite the passage of time, and which has been etched into the hearts of millions of people from every corner of the globe.
Español 
English (UK)