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Tribute to the Greatest Game Ever Made: Tetris

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Written by: BoneStormer

Videogames have advanced by leaps and bounds over the years. From Pong
to Mario 64, you can easily see how far they have come in over 20 years.
While some games are remembered as 'classics' or 'groundbreaking', very
few games have the same impact years later as they did when they first
came out. Then there is Tetris. While Tetris was first made way back in
1985, Tetris games continue to be made for even these so-called 'next-gen'
machines. Nintendo 64 had Tetris, and even Dreamcast had a Tetris. There
have been a few 'enhancements' to the game over the years, but the basic
gameplay is still intact, and the most fun. It's no wonder so many have
tried to duplicate it. Even with PS2, Gamecube, and 1.5ghz P4's, there
is no reason to think Tetris will go away anytime soon. That's not to
say the life of Tetris has always been so rosy.

The beauty of Tetris lies in its simplicity. 7 different types of blocks
(each made up of 4 smaller 4-sided squares and hence the name Tetris)
fall one after another, and you have to rotate them and place them in
a way to complete a line across the screen. The goal really is just to
get the highest score possible, but true masters are always looking to
perform a tetris (completing 4 lines at once). Its simple nature, yet
difficulty in actually completing this (especially at a high drop rate),
is why this game has lasted the test of time.

As we all know now, Tetris was first developed back in June of 1985 by
Alexey Pazhitnov in Moscow. Later that year it was ported to the IBM PC
and the legend of Tetris started to spread. A Hungarian programmed version
of Tetris caught the eye of Robert Stein in the UK who realized the money
making potential of the game. In 1986 the IBM PC version of Tetris is
released by Spectrum Holobyte (US) and Mirrorsoft UK, and the legend grows
this time over here in the States. Not only for its unique, addictive
gameplay; but one must remember that the 80's were the heart of the Cold
War between the US and the Soviet Union. So a Russian made game fascinated
the American public. To say the game was a success is an understatement.
It was ported to all home computers in the US at the time (Apple II, Commodore
64, ect). However, a 1988 interview on the CBS Evening News with Pazhitnov
brought a few things to light.

Up to this point, Stein basically claimed the game was developed by the
Hungarians who in fact really only ported the game from IBM PC to the
Apple and Commodore platforms. It seems while Stein had tried to get the
rights to the game from Pazhitnov, he didn't actually have permission
to publish the game yet still went ahead with giving out licenses to Tetris.
Not nice. When Pazhitnov was interviewed on CBS as the inventor of Tetris,
all this came to the forefront. As a result, a company called Electronorgtechinca
(ELORG) representing Pazhitnov tries to negotiate a publishing deal with
Stein who was giving out rights to a game he didn't own. Stein threatens
to make an international incident out of this (remember, this was during
the Cold War...), and so finally they work out a deal to publish the game
on computers. This did not include arcade versions, handheld versions
(Nintendo wanted Tetris for it's upcoming Gameboy), and platforms "which
we did not dream about yet". This wording would have consequences.

If things weren't a mess yet, they soon would become one. Mirrorsoft
UK and its affiliate in the US, Spectrum Holobyte, are sub-licensing their
rights to Tetris. Spectrum Holobyte gives Bullet-Proof Software the rights
to make Tetris video and computer games in Japan. But at the same time,
Mirrorsoft gives Atari Games the exact same rights in Japan and North
America. So that's two companies in Japan and two in the US that both
have rights to make Tetris for computers in their respective country.
Ack! Atari (under the name Tengen) plans to release Tetris on the NES,
while Bullet-Proof Software releases Tetris in Japan on the Famicon in
November 1988. Then Nintendo tries to get the rights for Tetris so it
can pack it in with its Gameboy. When talks with Stein go nowhere, Nintendo
goes to the source, ELORG (who represent Pazhitnov remember) in Moscow.
As you can imagine, the mess gets even worse.

Nintendo representative Henk Rogers easily signs a deal with ELORG to
make Tetris for Gameboy since their deal with Stein specifically said
handhelds weren't included. However, Rogers then shows them the console
version of Tetris and ELORG was shocked since they had never given them
the rights to the game on a console, and in fact when Rogers tells them
they got it from Tengen, ELORG says they never even heard of Tengen! Acting
quickly, Rogers pays ELORG royalties for all games sold so far, and promises
them more if he can get the rights to the game for Nintendo. I'm sure
you can see who may have problems with this (coughtengencough). When ELORG
shows Robert Maxwell (the owner of Mirrorsoft) Tengen's console version
of Tetris. He doesn't believe that they had given the rights to Atari
until he sees the name Mirrorsoft on the cartridge, and so he claims that
it is a pirated copy (which wasn't true). With all this information, ELORG
opens the biding for Tetris on consoles. Nintendo gives them an offer
they can't refuse. Thus starts the infamous Tengen vs. Nintendo court
battles.

The first thing Nintendo did was issue Tengen a cease-and-desist order
to stop producing any Tetris for the NES. However, Tengen still insisted
it had the rights to Tetris. Tengen went so far as to ask British and
Russian governments to step in. They even gets a promise from Mikhail
Gorbachev that they no longer need to worry about Nintendo. Tengen sues
Nintendo, Nintendo counter-sues. What fun. May 17, 1989, Tengen's NES
version of Tetris is released even with all this going on. In court the
key issue revolved around whether or not the NES was a 'computer system'.
Stein did have the rights to Tetris on 'computer systems', and the Famicon
was a 'Family Computer' after all. But Nintendo won the injunction to
stop Tengen's version of Tetris claiming that ELORG never intended to
include videogame systems in their contract which was clear by the definition
of 'computer' in the contract. So production of Tengen's Tetris was stopped,
and in July of 1989 Nintendo's version was released. It would sell 3 million
copies. Add to this the release of Gameboy and its pack-in Tetris, and
Tetris had become a household name.

The Tengen version is now considered a collector's item with less then
100,000 copies out there. Many consider it the better version since it
had a 2-player mode where as the Nintendo version is just 1-player. Still,
Tetris has made Nintendo a LOT of money (it was instrumental in getting
Gameboy into the market). Alexey Pazhitnov has made little money from
his game, but like a true artist he's content with all that Tetris has
accomplished. In 1996 with Henk Rogers, he organized The Tetris Company
LLC, and finally began to get some royalties for his creation.

Since the original Tetris, numerous Tetris games have come out. Some
just tried to 'spice' the game up with flashy background graphics. Some
with new 'additions'. Multi-player Tetris games added 'garbage' where
as if you completed 2 or more lines at once, random blocks would appear
on your opponents screen messing them up. The N64 version, The New Tetris
(my favorite version), was an excellent 4-player version of the game that
gave you the ability to swap your block with the one in the 'Next Block'
window. A great way to hold on to a stick until you could set up a tetris:)
Next Tetris (PC, PSX, DC) added a twist by having the blocks break apart
at points they differed in color. Tetris has even gone online! Still,
in 15 years, Tetris had changed very little where as technology had grown
immensely. Classics never seem to change or go away.

This block-puzzle type game may seem tired to some today, but this is
mainly due to so many 'wannabe' Tetris games flooding the market. From
bad Tetris offshoots like the 3D Tetrisphere, to Wetrix, to Yoshi's Cookie,
most of these were very poor imitations. A few standouts do come to mind
though, in particular Columns and Dr. Mario. Tetris is like the Rubix
Cube of videogames. There are plenty of rip-offs, but nothing beats the
original by Alexey Pazhitnov. Tetris began humbly enough on a Electronica
60 at the Moscow Academy of Science, yet how many of you out there have
a Tetris game? Be it on NES, Gameboy, or even PC? My guess is nearly every
one of you owns or has owned a Tetris game. The two of you that haven't
owned it have at least played it at some point in time. Even with games
like Quake and Perfect Dark, I myself still enjoy going back to play good
old Tetris, and I always will.

Sources: Bilgiciftligi, IGN