Originally published in the South China Morning Post, 1 June 2014.
As fans prepare to mark the 30th anniversary of all-time bestseller Tetris, Pavan Shamdasani explores its enduring appeal.
This Friday marks the 30th anniversary of a game that, as you are reading this, thousands of people will still be playing, perhaps cursing in frustration at their decades-long addiction. The game is Tetris and it remains the biggest-selling computer game of all time, with more than 150 million copies purchased since its release on June 6, 1984, across nearly every console and platform.
To put that figure into perspective, that’s 50 million copies more than its nearest rival, Wii Sports (for the Nintendo Wii). But it’s not only a matter of numbers – Tetris’ impact on the gaming world cannot be understated, and its influence is arguably greater than that of any release before or after, Pac-Man,Mario, Doom and Grand Theft Autoamong them.
The Tetris phenomenon can largely be boiled down to the most important factor in any video game: gameplay. In Tetris, the concept is simple – but difficult to explain on paper. The game involves more than just playing with virtual building blocks: Tetris provides a playing field where various geometric shapes slowly drop vertically. The object is to rotate them to fit together into horizontal lines. When a solid line is created, it disappears, and the lines above it fall down a level.
The game never “ends” and there’s never a winner, only those who gain the most points. So how could something so straightforward, so seemingly ordinary, become such a phenomenon? Henk Rogers, managing director of the Tetris Company, sums it up when he says: ” Tetris is simple to learn, hard to master and its addictive nature makes it something special.”
Rogers may be right, but his answer may not go far enough for those who don’t know the ins and outs of Tetris, so let’s go right to the source: its inventor, Alexey Pajitnov.
“Tetris is a very simple game, but it appeals to many players because it’s both visually and intellectually challenging. I think that’s what makes the game so addictive,” Pajitnov says. “We have an inherent desire to create order out of chaos and Tetris satisfies that desire on a very basic level, while being easy to understand and quick to learn.”
Wise words, especially for a man who put a bit of order into his own country’s chaos. Pajitnov created the game at the age of 27 while working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The year 1984 was a trying one for the USSR: it was losing the cold war.
Out of those confusing times emerged Tetris, a PC distraction that resonated with the people of the Soviet Union, bringing together all classes and age groups to engage in a new national pastime. And maybe, just maybe, it could break down barriers with the rest of the world – if only they could figure out who owned the rights.
Even now, the legal history of the game is unclear: British software house Andromeda got hold of the game and, after trying and failing to contact Pajitnov for the rights, released it for the IBM PC in 1987.
The response was tremendous and copycat versions followed on nearly every system of the time: Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari, Apple II.
However, none of them was exactly legal, says Rogers. “In those days … the Soviet Union … had little experience in dealing with intellectual property, especially as it related to software. However, Alexey had a formal agreement that allowed the Soviet government to exploit the rights to Tetris worldwide for 10 years.”
It was only when Rogers first saw the game, at a Las Vegas Consumer Electronic Show, that Tetris started its journey to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Rogers made his way to Moscow and alongside Nintendo, finally secured the exclusive rights toTetris, leading to the version many obsessives first played: on the immensely popular Game Boy handheld system in 1989.
Rogers relates the story of the exact moment when things changed forever. “I’m in Kyoto, in a room with the most important man in the computer game industry in 1988: the late Hiroshi Yamauchi, owner and CEO of Nintendo,” he says. “I say, ‘Mr Yamauchi, I think I may have one of the most important games in the history of our industry, but I can’t get distribution to order more than 40,000 units’, which would by definition make it a flop.
“He calls in Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Nintendo’s Mario and Zeldagames, and asks, ‘Is this a great game?’ Miyamoto thinks it is. Yamauchi asks him how he knows, and Miyamoto replies: ‘Because all of your employees are playing Tetris during lunch and after work’.”
This is enough to convince Yamauchi to pre-package every Game Boy system with a copy of Tetris, instead of his company’s own Super Mario Bros – a move that has early adopters up in arms, but ends up being possibly the shrewdest move in the history of gaming.
Tetris ends up selling 40 million copies on the Game Boy alone, based in large part on the wide-reaching appeal of the game: at heart it’s a classic puzzle game, but one that’s just as addictive for quick-thinking children as it is for their brainteaser-loving parents who enjoy chess. Couple that with the world’s first handheld consumer gaming device, able to be played anytime and anywhere as long as you have batteries, and you have a true recipe for success.
“Those early systems had such limited resources that every decent game needed a strong concept. Games had to do more with less,” says Hongkonger Gabe Andre, a long-time Tetris fan who first got addicted to the Game Boy version. ” Tetris showed that a game could be popular across a wide audience without going for novelty or a flashy presentation, and it makes sense thatTetris is still basically the same game today.”
William Lees, another Hong Kong fan who still plays the game, says: ” Tetrishelped video games broaden their scope: it’s easy to understand and takes speed and skill to master. It definitely had an impact on solidifying the puzzle genre, which is as strong as it ever was: think Bejeweled or Candy Crush Saga. Some argue Tetris is a perfect video game and impossible to improve upon. It’s the only video game that has a chance of standing alongside historic board games such as chess or backgammon.”
And on the eve of Tetris’ 30th anniversary, modern developers are considering ways to pay homage while pushing its boundaries.
“It’s remarkable – to remain such a powerful brand after so long is a big achievement,” says Adam Price, the producer of game developer Ubisoft’s upcoming Tetris 30th anniversary edition. “We’re doing a few things graphics-wise with the game, but regarding the core of the game itself, we can’t go too far away from what players expect. We’re aiming to make this the ultimate version of the game, with the most popular modes from over the 30 years, playable against your friends, or just on your own.'”
It’s hard to say if the new version will satisfy the game’s hardcore followers, but with such a strong core concept behind it, it’s hard to see how it could fail. And that’s really what Tetris’ legacy comes down to: universality. Turn on your PC or PS4 or Nintendo DS or iPhone, and you’re almost sure to find a version of Tetris available to download.
“No matter where you play your games – mobile device, laptop, game console – there will be a version of Tetris,” says Rogers. “We’re always tinkering and exploring new ideas to rework the look and feel of the game, but we never want to lose the essence of Tetris.”