Tetris’s story from the first to the last fallen figure

What happens if one of the main sections of mathematics with all your favorite sport.

Perhaps every person on the planet, if he did not play on his own, then at least he heard about the puzzle, the essence of which is the uniform and most profitable arrangement of geometric figures that accidentally fall in a row, in order to fill and destroy the horizontal rows.

The game developed in the USSR is a direct competitor of the Rubik cube in fame and folk love. A game that won the hearts of millions of people, and also became a symbol of an entire era. The game that has changed the world.

Today we’ll talk about Tetris!

Wonderful falling figures

Usually, when it comes to the most famous games on Earth, someone can recall Mario, someone will call GTA or Counter-Strike. One will say that this is a hide and there, and for someone the most beloved, and therefore associatively the most famous will be a conditional game of a fool. Perhaps this person just always has a deck of cards with him.

Nevertheless, if, at the time of the aforementioned issue, to make a slight clarification of the time period in which certain games passed the peak of popularity, naming, for example, the 80s-90s, the vast majority of people will almost unanimously utter three names: the Rubika cube, Kamuskochny and, of course, Tetris.

I do not exclude that even without any clarification, many will remember at least one of these games.

Neither now nor in the foreseeable future I see no reason to stop playing in Tetris to play. I hope he will never get tired.

Alexey Pazhitov, programmer, creator of Tetris

Figure One: Creator and Idea

The idea of ​​creating a tetris appeared by chance. However, unlike how this usually happens, the idea arises “from the air” and almost immediately becomes the basis of something very important and necessary-we can say that the Soviet programmer Alexei Pazhitnov went to the creation of his masterpiece purposefully. Albeit with a reservation.

The reservation lies in the fact that initially Pazhitnov created not Tetris at all. Initially, he was responsible for creating a program for testing equipment necessary for the study of artificial intelligence.

Nevertheless, Pazhitnov himself dreamed of simply making people happy. An ideal assistant in the implementation of this goal, he saw computer games.

Games allow people to know each other better and reveal things that you usually do not notice, for example, their way of thinking.

Alexey Pazhitnov about games

That is why Pazhitnov and colleagues remained overtime at work. The research center where programmers worked provided the opportunity to work on their own projects during non -working hours. And since the task of testing equipment was more likely to create games than by itself, Alexei remained at work with great pleasure.

It so happened that the goals of both working and personal were quite specific, but their implementation turned out to be an inconspicuous phenomenon.

Partly the history of the creation of Tetris began in 1979. At this time, after a short work at the Moscow Aviation Institute, Alexei Pazhitnov enters the position of expert patenting at the computing center of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Almost immediately, Alexei offer the place of the responsible programmer in the directions of artificial intelligence and speech recognition.

Despite such a responsible and serious position, Alexei does not cease to engage in the main enthusiasm of his life – games. Suddenly, this hobby becomes a great option for solving work problems for the programmer. The idea was to check the performance of artificial intelligence with the help of uncomplicated puzzles.

It was Tetris that became such a puzzle, as a result, disclosing not so much for the intelligence of the artificial, as if by making many real people for the intellectual abilities.

Sorry for the pun, but the tetris puzzle finally developed at the moment when several important factors came to the common denominator: the need to solve working problems, the desire to make people happy and the last on the list, but the most important thing is in practice – the passion of Pentamino Pentamino.

Pentamino is a puzzle invented by the American mathematician Solomon Golom, the essence of which is that a person from several small and different figures should collect one large figure. Nowhere easier, but how exciting!

Pentamino has been very popular in the USSR since the beginning of the 1960s. The stores sold sets of plastic figures with a special board, however, these sets were considered a scarce thing, so it was realistic to find something like on the store shelf quite problematic.

Much easier things were with cardboard pentamino. These were usually printed in scientific and cognitive journals, providing readers with the opportunity to independently cut the desired figures and put them on the table.

In the magazine “Science and Life” even a specialized section was conducted on an ongoing basis.

The Pazhitnov ownership was plastic pentamino – probably preserved since childhood. However, I do not exclude that he resorted to decision and cardboard versions. Alexey Pazhitnov always liked to solve puzzles. And he still loves this business.

Every time I go to the puzzle store, I definitely buy something there.

Alexey Pazhitnov about his love for puzzles

In 1984, five years later at the computing center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Pazhitnov makes an attempt to recreate his favorite childhood puzzle on a computer. The attempt ends with success.

Having taken as a basis the concept of the Pentamino, the programmer presented a game consisting of a descent of random figures that the player will have to turn in real time in order to fill out and subsequent destruction of fully filled rows.

So Tetris was born.

Figure second: tennis and notebook

However, why exactly “Tetris”? Where did the prefix “Tetra-” come from if the puzzle, which was inspired by Pajitov, is called pentamino? And where is the sport in general, the main task of which is to redirect the ball through the grid using rockets?

In fact, the history of the name “Tetris” is as entertaining as simple.

The very first prototype of the game Alexei Pazhitnov introduced electronics-60 on the computing machine. It was difficult to call it a full -fledged computer. As mentioned earlier, it was more likely to test the capabilities of artificial intelligence, which Pazhitnov used without a twinge of conscience for his own purposes.

The electronics-60 did not have a graphic interface, so Pazhitnov simulated the necessary figures using brackets and gaps. In the first version there was not a system of calculation of glasses, nor levels, and the figures were far from what we used to see them now.

However, one of the game could not be taken away – its addictism. As soon as Pazhitnov showed his developments to his colleagues and they first tried to play Tetris, it did not pass even a day so that someone would not launch the game for a computer.

Moreover, a friend of Pazhitnova and part-time psychologist Vladimir Pokhilko, who ordered the game for the Moscow Medical Institute, noted that many employees simply stopped working, so fascinated by tetris. In the end, Pokhilko forbade the game at the institute to restore performance.

Nevertheless, one catch surfaced. It turned out that the computing power of the electronics is not enough to reproduce the game without any problems, operating with five constituent squares in figures. The figures could not be rotated around the center of gravity. Obviously, the car was trite not enough RAM.

Then Alexey Pazhitnov made a very wise decision. He reduced the number of components of each of the figures from five to four. Now the figures began to spin freely around their axis, and also turned from Pentamino into Tetramino.

Hence the prefix “Tetra-” in the name.

The end of “-is” appeared for an even more banal reason. Tennis has always been the most beloved sport Alexei Pazhitnov.

Tetris – a combination of the words tetramino and tennis.

In addition, the developer claimed that during the creation of the game he felt that it would be too difficult with twelve various variations of the shape of figures obtained from five squares.

As a result, after the departure of one of the squares, the figures turned out seven. The puzzle has become easier and clearer, and again, the load on the computer decreased. And not only the computer.

Pazhitnov himself spoke about this like this:

Seven figures are used in Tetris, and this is luck, because seven is the size of the human RAM. That a person can easily remember. You can remember a seven -digit phone, but the eight -digit one is already more difficult. A group of seven people is the maximum group of people who can do without a boss. Eight – no matter how much they are friends – they will not be able to coordinate. I know this from the experience of hiking.

Pazhitnov about human RAM and campaigns

Officially, Pazhitov released Tetris on June 6, 1984. Information about the game began to spread quite quickly among the population. Basically, of course, they only heard or saw her from the side, if it was lucky a little more – for example, in a thematic magazine.

After eight months, it was decided to port the tetris on personal computers. And specifically for the IBM PC common at that time. This turned out to be much more difficult than supposed in advance.

Alexey Pazhitnov did not know how to work with a PC, and therefore turned to Vadim Gerasimov for help, who at that time was 16 years old. In the computing center, he found himself thanks to his computer science teacher who sent a talented student to comprehend the science of programming.

In the computing center, the young man just worked with IBM PC. He was noticed by Dmitry Pavlovsky – a colleague and friend of Alexei Pazhitnov. Having offered Vadim to work on the transfer of tetris to a PC, as well as become part of the team to create new games, he quickly brought young talent with the creator of Tetris.

Gerasimov could not easily rewrite Tetris to Turbo Pascal, thereby adapting it to IBM PC. However, with one transfer, the case was not limited to. Gerasimov was also able to add glasses of glasses to the tetris and debugged the screen.

After another half a year already joint work, Gerasimov and Pazhynov were able to add color to the game, created a rating table and displayed it on the screen, and also adapted the game to different types of displays. Yes, then there were no single standards and the game had to be adapted to each display separately, which caused problems in the code.

Other colleagues also did not stand aside. For example, Mikhail Potemkin was able to portle the updated version of the Tetris to the Electronics computer, and also came up with the function of automatic filling the field in case the new batch of the glass is half full. “Glass” is a game field where the figures fall.

As it is customary to say Tetris “went to gold”. Rather, the game began to be recorded on 5.25-inch floppy disks and distributed through repeated copying. Two weeks later, the whole Moscow spoke about the game. During the subsequent couple of months, the whole USSR already knew about Tetris.

Despite the fact that the game was distributed completely free, a separate defense system was still present in its code, designed in which case to prove the authorship of Alexei Pazhitnov.

Based on the fact that Tetris spread solely on the principle of “from hand to hand”, it becomes clear that he did not bring any profit to his author. Moreover, according to the laws of the USSR of that time, all rights to commercial distribution of software and other technologies belonged to the state. What is there, almost everything belonged to the state.

The rights to Tetris began to belong to the Academy of Sciences, in the walls of which the game was developed. For this, Pazhitnov received a small reward in the form of a one -time increase to wages from his immediate superior – Bryabrin Viktor Mikhailovich.

No one even tried to consider other options. Try Pazhitnov https://luckstercasino.co.uk/ to claim personal rights regarding his own creation – no matter how terrible it may sound – he could easily end up in prison.

The benefit of Bryabin turned out to be a person understanding and, even better, the enthusiastic idea of ​​Tetris. Pazhitnov’s creation came close to the threshold of the doors of the iron curtain.

Figure Third: Tetris and War

War for Tetris itself, of course.

It is worth saying that Pazhitnov’s authorities were displeased by the success of the game, since it did not suggest that some puzzle about cubes could come out of the walls of the office where they deal with artificial intelligence problems. According to the highest ranks of the Academy, the research group should not have done something like that and spend working resources in vain.

However, Viktor Mikhailovich Bryabin, as mentioned earlier, did not support such moods regarding the game. The idea of ​​Tetris seemed to him by a rather entertaining experiment just in the direction of work with artificial intelligence. In addition, Bryabin understood that initially Pazhitnov, albeit partially, created Tetris as a program for testing working equipment.

In 1986, Bryabrin sent a copy of Tetris directly to the Hungarian publisher of Novotrade Games, which was part of the Institute of Cybernetics (SZKI), with whom, in turn, programmers from the computing center of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This was the first step towards the world glory of the puzzle.

Hungarian colleagues liked the game so much that almost immediately they ported it to the computers of the Commodore 64 and even more common Apple 2.

At the same time, as part of a business trip to Hungary, at the Institute of Cybernetics, there was a software developer and part -time owner of the London company Andromeda Software Robert Stein, who immediately noted the commercial potential of Tetris and tried to contact Pazhitinov and Bryabin. Stein sent a fax with a request for the acquisition of licensing rights to production and distribution of the game.

Pazhitnov and Bryabin agreed, however, the process of signing the contract was complicated by the Soviet bureaucracy and the severity of the iron curtain. In this regard, it was possible to approve the transaction only a few weeks after the initial request, when official papers went through the thorny path through several translators and an infinite number of the heads of the computing center of the Academy of Sciences.

Nevertheless, so far in the Soviet Union, Pazhitnov and Bryabin filed a war with pieces of paper, in the UK, Stein began his own war with corporations to promote Tetris to the masses. First of all, Robert Stein turned to his British colleagues from MirrorSoft. This is not a typo, Bill Gates company has nothing to do with Tetris then.

It seemed to Stein that from the first attempt he would be torn off with his hands due to such a promising proposal, despite the fact that Stein himself had no rights to the game. However, the bosses of MirrorSoft reacted to the proposal skeptical, not seeing a possible hit in Tetris.

Many were frankly afraid of Soviet origin. True, out of respect for the owner of Andromeda Software, the director of MirrorSoft Robert Maxwell still decided to share an offer with his American colleagues from the subsidiary of Spectrum Holobyte.

On the same day, a completely unequivocal answer came from America: “Urgent! Take the game as quickly as possible!”.

Tetris version from MirrorSoft

The contract between Andromeda Software and MirrorSoft signed literally on the knee. The amount of the contract is about 3,000 pounds, and the conditions dictate 7-15% of the profit depending on the number of copies sold on the PC.

The head of Spectrum Holobyte requires a change in graphics, adding full -fledged musical compositions to the game, images of Soviet leaders, and attractions on the asses, and also promotes the idea that in the West the game should spread in a red box with Cyrillic text on the cover. In his opinion, this should attract buyers, immediately showing that Tetris is a Soviet game.

Spectrum Holobyte version was light in January 1988. In the game, everything has changed except mechanics.

This was the version of the game from the publisher Spectrum Holobyte after numerous changes

In the United States, many Tetris fans were sure that the game was a secret weapon developed in Soviet laboratories to destabilize the American dream.

It is not surprising. The Cold War was in full swing, and therefore any thing associated with the USSR in half of the Americans caused quiet horror, and in the other half – genuine interest. The second half was just the same and was able to turn a wonderful game about falling figures into a real sensation. Tetris was positioned as the first game, emerging from the “Iron Curtain”.

The fact that while Tetris won the hearts of millions of people around the world remains interesting, Alexei Pazhitnov still fought with the bureaucratic system of the USSR. No one on the other side of the ocean thought that the rights to the game belong to one modest Soviet programmer.

One way or another, Tetris had commercial success in Europe and the United States. MirrorSoft sold tens of thousands of copies in two months, and Spectrum Holobyte sold more than 100,000 copies per year. According to Spectrum Holobyte, the average player in Tetris was from 25 to 45 years old, he was a manager or engineer.

At the awards of the Association of Publishers Association for outstanding achievements in the field of software in March 1988, Tetris received awards “Best Entertainment Software”, “Best Original Game”, “Best Strategic Program” and “Best Consumer Software”.

At that time, the tetris covers the dry: “Made in the United States of America, developed abroad”. Not a word about Pazhitnov.

After a successful deal with Mirrosoft, Robert Stein decides to move on. The next step in the spread of tetris, he sees the appearance of a game on the slot machine field, as well as home consoles. To do this, he agrees with the American Atari, which immediately resells the rights to Tetris Japanese Sega.

Stein is trying to get the necessary licenses from the Soviet Union, for which he arrives at a meeting with Alexei Pazhitnov in Moscow, indicating that if the Pazhynov has developed the game, then he owns all the rights to it. Surprising Stein in the USSR, things are somewhat different.

It turned out that the rights to Tetris assigned himself a computing center, within the walls of which the game was developed. Therefore, negotiations on the sale of rights to the game were taken by the unit of the Academy of Sciences engaged in licenses, “license”.

As a result, it was not possible to conclude a contract and Stein left the Soviet Union with nothing.

After unsuccessful negotiations, Pazhitnov left the computing center and moved to the organization “Electronurgical Technology”, which was assigned to the Academy of Sciences. There, the programmer began to work on new projects, and also told new colleagues about the popularity of Tetris in the West. The authorities of electrical industry equipment decided to cancel previous agreements with Stein on the basis of the fact that initially Pazhitnov himself was not concerned in agreements, and Stein used this for personal purposes.

Robert Stein turned out to be between two lights. The Americans and the Japanese demanded the provision of an official license, and the Russians wanted a legitimate settlement of the situation on their own conditions.

By the way, the conditions are rather strict, because in the case of their adoption, Alexei Pazhitnov lost the right to his own creation, but Tetris could calmly spread in the West, as the invention of the Soviet Union as a whole.

After numerous trips to Moscow, Stein was forced to accept the conditions of representatives of electron -industry equipment, since journalists from CBS have already begun to dig under it. A ten -year -old Tetris license provided directly from the state was signed.

Alexey Pazhitnov did not receive a penny from this deal.

Everything that programmers did in the USSR belonged to the state. So when Tetris was sold to the West, I wrote a paper in which I refused the rights to it for ten years. I do not regret it. I have enough fact that so many people enjoy my game.

Alexey Pazhitnov and his optimism

The game hit the Japanese market.

The owner of the Japanese version of Tetris is Hank Rogers – the head of the small Japanese company Bullet Proof Software. Rather, a PC version of the game in Japanese falls under the possession of Hank. At the same time, the game is noted by the president of the American unit of Nintendo Minor Arakawa, who wants to release a sensational novelty at the coming Game Boy.

Rogers had close ties with Nintendo, and therefore, at one of the meetings of directors, he said that Tetris is vital to promote a new console from Big N. Obviously, Arakava fully supported him in this. It was decided by any means to get the rights to the coveted game.

Rogers made several attempts to call MirrorSoft, but not one of them was successful. Having phoned directly to Robert Stein, Hank Rogers heard only a few slurred promises that everything would soon be settled and Nintendo will receive his rights to the game. The tube was laid as sharply as it was taken.

At this moment, Rogers suspected that something in this story was wrong. To dispel his own doubts, the head of Bullet Proof Software went to Moscow to meet with Pazhitov and representatives.

Having met with Nikolai Belikov, an employee of Elorg, who was responsible for drawing up a deal with Stein and Alexei Pazhitnov, Rogers unexpectedly learned for himself that the Soviet Union had not yet received a single amount agreed in the contract with Robert.

The situation became even more absurd when, during the conversation, Hank Rogers decided to show Belikov Tetris Belikov for the Japanese console Nintendo Famicom.

As soon as we sat down at the table with Mr. Rogers, he took out the game console without delay and said: “Mr. Belikov, I sell your goods very successfully”. I answered him: “Elorg did not give anyone the right to release tetris on game consoles. The only company to which any rights were transferred was Andromeda Software, and they apply only to the version for personal computers. You illegally sell what does not belong to you “. Rogers, of course, was in shock. In the end, he said: “I just didn’t know … You excuse me, I want to work with you, I have very good connections with Nintendo, the world’s largest game company. She has 70% of the market “. I proposed only one solution – a purely bureaucratic move: “Mr. Rogers, please write everything on paper”. Hank said “good”, and I immediately escorted it-Robert Stein was about to come, and I did not want them to meet.

Nikolai Belikov about his meeting with Hank Rogers and surprise from the sight of the console

It became obvious that absolutely all 130 thousand cartridges with tetris sold in Japan were a deception. By that time, Stein has not paid a license received even with the vague consent of Pazhitnov, and therefore it was impossible to consider the cartridge licensed.

In order to avoid litigation, Rogers bought part of the cartridges from the representatives of Elorg’a, and also promised to figure out what happened and help make the creators of the game in their creation.

The following followed a series of bureaucratic proceedings, as a result of which it became clear who, whom and when he tried to deceive. It got to the point that one company accused the other of misunderstanding the term “personal computer”.

Atari Games, which produced Pirate cartridges, claimed that the Nintendo Famicom console is not a console at all, but a full -fledged computer, and therefore their cartridges with tetris cannot be considered a violation of the contract. In response to this, Nintendo provided papers (pre -prepared by Nikolai Belikov after additional negotiations with Rogers), proving that the word “computer” should be understood as a device consisting of a screen, keyboard, mouse, as well as a full -fledged system unit working on a full -fledged processor.

There was a war of papers and statements.

Ultimately, the truth sided with Rogers and Nintendo.

Pazhynov supported Rogers to the detriment of Rogers to the detriment of Kevin Maxwell (Robert Maxwell’s son, head of Mirrorsoft), who came to approve the rights to Tetris for Mirrorsoft and Portable consoles. Maxwell was an extremely unpleasant person. It seemed to him that the money and influence of his father could satisfy any of his desires. Could not.

After the end of the court and the forced recall of all the cartridges issued by the ATARI Games issued to the warehouse, after the deprivation of Robert Stein, the rights to own the console license of the tetris, after paying all costs, fines and debts from Stein and Mirrorsoft, Alexei Pagginov, Hank Rogers and the minor of Arakava, everythingIt is possible to sign a contract in the amount of $ 500,000 plus 50 cents for each cartridge sold.

Nintendo received full rights to spread tetris on its consoles, including portable ones, and Rogers and the Soviet Union received their money. Yes, in Elorg’E were adamant: since Pazhitnov created the game during working hours, all profit should go to the state.

Kevin Maxwell remains extremely dissatisfied with the court decision in favor of Nintendo – the company of his father, Spectrum Holobyte and ATARI associated with them lost millions of dollars of both existing and future profits.

To solve the resulting problem, the younger Maxwell does not come up with anything better than contacting his father. Robert Maxwell uses all his connections to reach no less than the Government of the Soviet Union. You correctly understood, the struggle for Tetris reached the political level.

In response to a request from Moscow, Maxwell came up that he should not worry about the company from Japan. It is believed that Robert Maxwell Mikhail Gorbachev personally answered.

In connection with these events, Kevin Maxwell decides to send a telegram to Nikolai Belyakov, in which he reports that he made a number of very terrible mistakes, and that Nikolai would personally apologize to the head of MirrorSoft for all the troubles that he brought to him.

The telegram stated that otherwise Belyakov would personally respond to Gorbachev. Fortunately, nothing of the kind happened. Threats on paper remained threats on paper.

At this time, Atari did not stop doing tetris. Despite the court decision in favor of Nintendo, they planned to release their version of the puzzle called “Tetyis: The Soviet Mind Game” for game consoles under the contract with MirrorSoft. About 500 thousand copies of the game were supposed to go into circulation.

However, this did not happen. Another trial occurred. This time the last.

In November 1989, hearings were held on the legitimacy of the transfer of rights to Tetris Nintendo Tetris. This time the plaintiff was atari. The company’s representative did not like that after the transaction was completed between Pazhitnov, Rogers and Arakawa Nintendo, the Atari directly pointed out the door, forbidden the production and spread of the puzzle.

Nikolai Belikov also participated in a meeting on the side of Nintendo. Before the departure of Nikolai was invited to the State Committee on Computing Technology and Informatics. Instead of parting words, the representative of Elorg’a heard a warning that in case of loss, personally would be asked for those money that the USSR theoretically could not earn due to his rash actions.

Fortunately, the court ended in favor of Nintendo. Atari were forced to withdraw from sales all copies of the game Tetyais: The Soviet Mind Game. The company suffered losses of several million dollars.

Two years after the trial, Kevin Maxwell dies under mysterious circumstances during a walk on the sea yacht. A year earlier, Robert Stein finally loses all his rights to spread Tetris, having earned Pazhitnov’s brainchild by that time about 200 thousand dollars instead of possible millions.

The latest hopes of MirrorSoft died at least somehow make money on the game.

Nintendo in relation to the puzzle, fate develops with a diametral opposite. Tetris literally “sells” the world Game Boy. It is thanks to the creation of Pazhitnov for several years that the console diverges with a 30 millionth circulation, 46% of the owners of which are adult wealthy people.

As a result, Game Boy became one of the most successful consoles in the history of the video game, and Tetris was able to bring Nintendo revenue in size of $ 2-3 billion.

Pazhitnov himself turned out to be not deprived. By 1996, the term of his ten -year agreement for the transfer of rights to Tetris Elorg’u and the developer first received his well -deserved interest for creating a puzzle.

Finally, injustice was settled, but the truth triumphed.

Figure Figure: Fate and People

For many participants in the initial development, Tetris has become a kind of “ticket to life”. I do not want to say that being in the Soviet Union was a burden for them, however, if each of the programmers chose another country for further residence, this is at least indicative.

After all the court proceedings and the settlement of the issue of copyright, Alexei Pazhitnov moved with his family to the United States, where from 1996 to 2005 he worked in Microsoft. There, under his leadership, an anthology of Pandora’s Box puzzles was developed. Microsoft was proud that the “creator of Tetris” works in their staff. Marketers did not hesitate to mention this at every opportunity.

Bill Gates was my tester. Lost the entire Pandora Box – a collection of puzzles that I did for Microsoft. From beginning to end. And wrote to me on three pages of comments.

Alexey Pazhitnov about his work with Bill Gates

In Microsoft, Pazhynov worked both on offline and online components of his games. In the latter case, these were almost the same puzzles, only with a competitive aspect.

With the move to the USA, Pazhitnova was helped by Hank Rogers. He recommended and in fact arranged a developer in Microsoft. In addition, Rogers and Pazhitnov together founded their own Blue Planet Software and The Tetris Company LLC, respectively. After that, Alexei was able to register the Tetris trademark, and since 2005 he became a full -fledged owner of all rights and licenses to his creation.

Following Pazhitnov, his friend-psychologist Vladimir Pokhilko, who studied Tetris’s mechanics from the point of view of medicine and psychology, moved in the United States. The former director of the computing center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Bryabin Viktor Mikhailovich was also there.

Young talent Vladimir Gerasimov ultimately moved to Australia and got a job at Google. Gerasimov received almost nothing with the stunning success of the game, which in many ways he opened the way to spread.

At the time of work on the tetris of young Vadim, it was difficult to officially issue as an employee of the computing center, so he remained in history, like a teenager who simply transferred tetris to IBM PC.

Under a cunning agreement provided by Pazhitov, Gerasimov could not claim any rewards, and received the rights only to Tetris for a computer. Whatever it means.

One way or another-someone to a greater extent, someone to a lesser extent-each of the participants in the events was able to find the place in life, which he initially sought. Of course, in the future, fate made its adjustments, becoming for some end, while having made life even better.

However, this is another story.

Figure fifth: heritage and culture

Tetris was able to have a huge impact not only on the game community, but also on the entire world mass culture. Having become one of the best -selling games on the planet, having competed only another “cubic” creation – Minecraft – Tetris has rightly turned into a real cultural phenomenon. A thing that almost every resident of the Earth knows about.

What is there, Tetris is a game that is on almost every possible platforms, starting from the phone to the TV, calculator and even an oscilloscope. Tetris can be found even inside the client μTorrent. To do this, in the “On Program” section, press the “T” key. Tetris is also often left as “Easter” in other video games and programs.

In a word, tetris is everywhere. And the number of versions of the famous puzzle is calculated by thousands.

Speaking about global sales, it is worth noting that the versions of Spectrum Holobyte for personal computers were sold in a circulation of 150,000 copies for $ 6 million ($ 14 million with an inflation adjustment) for two years, from 1988 to 1990. Tetris has achieved more success with the release of Nintendo version for NES and the version for Game Boy in 1989.

By 1990, 1.5 million copies of the version for NES for 114 million dollars were sold with inflation, and Game Boy sets with tetris sold 2 million units.

Tetris headed Japanese sales charts from August to September 1989 and from December 1989 to January 1990. Tetris became the leader of Nintendo sales for the first few months of 1990. By 1992, 7.5 million copies of Tetris for Nintendo were sold in the United States, and by 1996 – more than 20 million around the world. Nintendo eventually sold 35 million copies for Game Boy and 8 million for NES.

By January 2010, more than 170 million copies of Tetris franchise were sold, including about 70 million physical copies and more than 100 million copies for mobile phones, which made it one of the best -selling franchises of the video game of all times.

All in the same 2010, Alexei Pazhitnov said in an interview that for that time he had been working on a multi -user version of Tetris for ten years. However, according to him, she was far from her completion.

Multi -user Tetris saw the light only after another nine years. In 2019, Tetris 99 came out on the consoles of Nintendo Switch from the Arika studio, the main innovation of which was a full -fledged multiplayer regime, which, in essence, resembled the concept of the game of the Battle Royale genre. Players got the opportunity during the set of points to “toss” incomplete rows of cells into “glasses” to other 98 participants. The winner by tradition was the last “surviving”.

If we talk about recognizing the creation of Pazhitnov, then in 1991 PC Format called Tetris one of the 50 best computer games of all time. The editors called it “incredibly exciting” and “one of the best games of existing in principle”.

In 2007, Tetris took second place in the IGN ranking “100 Greatest Video Grabs of all time”.

And in 2015, the Strong National Museum of Games included Tetris in the World Hall of Glory of Video games.

Tetris is also the subject of scientific research. Since the 1980s, the name of the game periodically flashes in various thematic scientific articles. For example, even at the time of creating a puzzle, the already mentioned psychologist Vladimir Pokhilko considered Tetris as an ideal field for experiments on the perception and cognitive capabilities of a person.

Including, thanks to Studies, Pokhilko became known that tetris improves spatial thinking, helps to treat depression, helps to get rid of post -traumatic disorder, and also increases driving skills and reduces dependence on alcohol and tobacco.

“Tetris effect” is clear 🙂

In honor of the vetris, a psychological term was even named, called the “Tetris syndrome” or “Tetris effect”. Its essence literally in one sentence was described by Pazhitnov himself:

The “Tetris effect” is called the syndrome when a person plays tetris too much, and then begins to see the falling blocks in life – and think about how to compactly combine various forms around himself.

Pazhitnov and his description of what he did with human perception

Moreover, in studies using an MRI to scan the brain, it was found that Tetris has a direct effect on its structure. For example, an experiment conducted in 1994 showed that after 12 sessions of a 30-minute game, brain gray matter became more dense. This directly meant that the game in tetris could stimulate the brain to intellectual activity.

In addition, the Tetris since 2010 in the USA has been held in the World Cup, where the strongest players have competed among themselves for the title of the best in the discipline.

The absolute champion of playing Tetris is Jonas Nyubauer – a seven -time title holder.

Jonas Nyubauer on the right

The puzzle is assembled

The last figurine Tetramino moves down rapidly. Having made three turns around her axis, she freezes in a player chosen position. A few moments remain until the moment when the filled row will disappear forever.

Tetris is a great game. This is more than just a puzzle. Born from love for these very puzzles, the creation of a simple Soviet scientist was able to capture the attention of the whole globe. Tetris’s story – from the very first to the last figure – this is a series of scandals, intrigues, deceit, trials, tricks and banal luck.

Once starting with a simple children’s dream, with a naive desire to make people happy, Tetris has become a real symbol of an entire era. Era of large -scale changes and significant opportunities. A symbol of global changes and childhood of several generations.

Alexey Pazhitnov created not just the game. At one time, he created an image of hope for millions of people.

Throughout its existence, Tetris has repeatedly proved that one hundred percent worthy to be considered the best game of all times. As I could show that, in order to win the whole world, the game does not have to be difficult. Rather, on the contrary: one simple and understandable, but to the smallest details of the worked out mechanics, to become a legend.

Rectangular tetramino sinks from the edge of the “glass”. Leaving all the philosophical questions about the fullness of the latter, the figure fills the empty place without it. Several rows of multi -colored rectangles begin to flash to the beat of the last moments of their own existence. The ranks disappear. The “victorious banner” appears on the screen.

I express my great gratitude to everyone who read this text. I hope that familiarization with him could contribute to the expansion of your horizons and provided a fascinating reading session.

Have you played Tetris in childhood or, perhaps, are still doing it? What maximum number of points did you manage to score? What are your favorite figures? Share your memories and thoughts in the comments. Let’s discuss!

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