28 Facts About Tetris

Tetris is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984.

Tetris is available on over 65 platforms, setting a Guinness world record for the most ported video game.

Tetris is rooted within popular culture and its popularity extends beyond the sphere of video games; imagery from the game has influenced architecture, music and cosplay.

Tetris is primarily composed of a field of play in which pieces of different geometric forms, called "tetrominoes", descend from the top of the field.

Since 1996, the Tetris Company has internally defined specifications and guidelines that publishers must adhere to in order to be granted a license to Tetris.

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For example, a single line clear in Tetris Zone is worth 100 points, clearing four lines at once is worth 800, while each subsequent back-to-back Tetris is worth 1, 200.

Tetris's goal was to make people want to buy a Russian product; the game came complete with a red package and Cyrillic text, an unusual approach on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

Tetris was ported to platforms including the Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC.

Tetris was a commercial success in Europe and the United States: Mirrorsoft sold tens of thousands of copies in two months, and Spectrum HoloByte sold over 100, 000 units in the space of a year.

At the Software Publishers Association's Excellence in Software Awards ceremony in March 1988, Tetris won Best Entertainment Software, Best Original Game, Best Strategy Program, and Best Consumer Software.

Nevertheless, Tetris was a commercial success in North America, Europe and Asia.

Tetris was regularly invited by journalists and publishers, through which he discovered that his game had sold millions of copies, from which he had not made any money.

Tetris marveled at the freedom and the advantages of Western society, and spoke often of his travels to his colleagues upon returning to the Soviet Union.

Tetris realized that there was no market in Russia for their programs.

In 2002, Pajitnov and Rogers founded Tetris Holding after the purchase of the game's remaining rights from Elorg, now a private entity following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Tetris has been released on a multitude of platforms since the creation of the original version on the Electronika 60.

Tetris Online had developed versions for console-based digital download services.

Roy Wagner reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World, and said that "Tetris is simple in concept, simple to play, and a unique design".

Tetris gained greater success with the release of Nintendo's NES version and Game Boy version in 1989.

Tetris became Nintendo's top-seller for the first few months of 1990.

Nintendo's versions of Tetris went on to sell copies in the United States by 1992, and more than worldwide by 1996.

Sega's arcade version of Tetris was successful in Japan, where it became the highest-grossing arcade game of 1989.

Spectrum HoloByte's PC versions of Tetris eventually sold more than copies as of 1995, with women accounting for nearly half of Tetris players, in contrast to most other PC games.

In 1996, Tetris Pro was ranked the 38th best game of all time by Amiga Power.

On March 12, 2007, The New York Times reported that Tetris was named to a list of the ten most important video games of all time, the so-called game canon.

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Tetris was the only game for which the list did not specify one or two versions; the editors explained that after deadlocking over which version was best, they concluded that there was no wrong version of Tetris to play.

In 2007, Tetris came in second place in IGN's "100 Greatest Video Games of All Time".

Tetris appeared in the 2010 short animated film Pixels, and in the 2015 movie of the same name inspired by the former.