Tetris Celebrates 25 Years of Falling Bricks

One-quarter of a century, 25 years. It's hard to believe that Tetris, a simple, casual game that most have seen has been around that long. It involves rotating falling geometric shapes made up of bricks to complete and cause rows to vanish. On June 6th, 2009, it reaches the ripe old age of 25.

Tetris is not just simple, it's easy: you only need cursor keys (on a PC) to rotate the shapes. The game has been ported from PC to mobile gaming systems, PDAs, smartphones, even to regular cell phones.

In the 1980s, Alexey Pajitnov was a mathematician specializing in AI research at a Russian university. Writing games was a hobby. Little did he know that what he unleashed on the world on June 6, 1984 would become a classic video game.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but so many knock-offs resulted that in 1996, Pajitnov and Hank Rogers entered into a partnership to manage and license the Tetris. That company, Blue Planet Software, owns the full rights to the game, and will vigorously defend it.

At E3 this week, the company issued a press release ta. Hank Rogers said:

“The best is yet to come. We’re working on versions of TETRIS that will make it possible to have ‘international’ games similar to the Olympics, or the World Cup. The next generation of TETRIS games will align themselves to the user – so they can always be exactly what best fits any specific individual – ‘smart’ TETRIS games that quickly ‘learn their partner’ and adjust to give maximum game play satisfaction.

“We have a vision of the future where people all over the world can meet and become friends without speaking the same language. TETRIS players can better understand each other through mutual game play and create a new world fabric of ‘likenesses’ instead of differences by being connected through the universal language of Tetriminos – the distinctive world-famous playing pieces of TETRIS.”

Adam Sussman, Vice President Worldwide Publishing for EA Mobile added:

“TETRIS is the best-selling mobile phone game of all time, showing continued growth year after year all around the world. We are proud to join The Tetris Company in celebrating the 25th Anniversary of TETRIS; a product that has had such a significant impact on the entire video game industry.”

He's right about that: it was the hugely successful handheld version for the Nintendo Game Boy that was released in 1989 that established the reputation of Tetris as one of the most popular ever, and embedded in the minds of many. It probably also fueled a huge spike in OCD (and a relative, who is a past sufferer of the disease, tells me he avoids it like the plague).

Here's to the next 25 years of Tetris! And while you're at it, play a round or two.


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