 |
Alexey PazhitnovCreator of 'Tetris'
Country:
 USA |
Content:
- Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris
- The Birth of Tetris
- The Spread of Tetris
- The CBS Interview
- The Battle for Rights
- Legacy and Later Career
Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris
Alexey Pajitnov is a legendary Russian game programmer and the author of the popular video game "Tetris". He gained worldwide recognition for creating this iconic game, but unfortunately did not receive the full financial benefits from its success.
The Birth of Tetris
Pajitnov, who worked at the Computer Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, occasionally developed simple games in his free time. One day, he came up with the idea to program the classic puzzle game "Pentamino" in a way that the shapes would fall and rotate around their center of gravity. Due to the limited computing power of the "Elektronika-60" computer, he simplified the game by truncating the shapes and thus, Tetris was born. He developed the program in just two weeks using the popular Russian programming language Pascal.
The Spread of Tetris
Sixteen-year-old schoolboy Vadim Gerasimov ported Tetris to the IBM PC, and soon the game gained popularity in Moscow and throughout the country. A year later, thanks to Pajitnov's colleagues from Budapest, Tetris appeared on the Apple II and Commodore 64 platforms. Around the same time, the game caught the attention of British businessman Robert Stein, who occasionally visited Moscow in search of great Hungarian coders. Stein was impressed by the game and sold partial rights to Mirrorsoft, a company owned by British media magnate Robert Maxwell. The details of this transaction are unclear, but it is a historical fact that Stein came to negotiate the purchase of rights several months after the deal was already made.
The CBS Interview
The true author of Tetris might have remained unknown if it weren't for the CBS journalists who tracked down Pajitnov and introduced him to the world as the creator of the popular game. After the interview aired, Stein's position weakened, as his secret trips to Moscow and the dubious origin of his rights to the game became public knowledge.
The Battle for Rights
Meanwhile, Maxwell's companies, Mirrorsoft and Spectrum Holobyte, released their own version of Tetris filled with Soviet atmosphere. The Russian authorities, true to their nature, refused to sell the rights to Stein on his terms. The situation escalated when Bullet-Proof Software, a company collaborating with Nintendo, obtained a license to create console versions of Tetris. They sold around two million cartridges for the Famicom console in a short period of time. In Russia, this went unnoticed, but the situation became more complicated when Nintendo planned to release Tetris for their GameBoy handheld console.
Henk Rogers, the CEO of Bullet-Proof Software, arrived in Moscow to investigate the situation and inform the officials from the "Electronorgtechnica" association about his company's success. The demonstration of the Famicom cartridge had a profound effect and exposed the fact that no one had the right to publish console versions of Tetris. Stein and Maxwell were left with only the rights to the PC versions, obtained from the Soviet side. They tried to buy rights to the lucrative market of game consoles and arcade machines, but they were only able to obtain a contract worth millions of dollars from "Electronorgtechnica" and Nintendo.
Legacy and Later Career
Alexey Pajitnov did not receive any royalties from the sales of Tetris. However, he did not go unrewarded. Rumor has it that the government gifted him a 286 computer and provided him with an apartment. In 1988, with the support of Rogers, Pajitnov founded AnimaTek and moved to the United States in 1991. Although relatively unknown, AnimaTek's developments have been incorporated into popular games such as Microsoft's Age of Empires. Rogers, on the other hand, focused on profiting from Tetris and established Blue Planet Software and Tetris companies. In 1996, Pajitnov joined Microsoft and oversaw the release of the puzzle game Pandora's Box, which received several prestigious awards. While he no longer actively programs, Pajitnov's legacy as the creator of Tetris continues to be celebrated.
