WEBVTT - How Did Tetris Go from Soviet Passtime to Smashing Success?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff Loauren

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<v Speaker 1>Bobblebaum here. For almost four decades, through the Cold War

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<v Speaker 1>and its thawing, through the fall of the USSR and

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<v Speaker 1>the rise of globalism, through diplomatic strains and years of

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<v Speaker 1>touch and go Russian American relations, people all over the

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<v Speaker 1>world have remained mesmerized by a Soviet invention, a computer

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<v Speaker 1>game of all things, that somehow has both persevered and prospered.

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<v Speaker 1>Tetris and its ever quickening trickle down of four block

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<v Speaker 1>shapes is immediately identifiable to just about anyone who's ever

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<v Speaker 1>used a digital device with the screen. When it was

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<v Speaker 1>conceived in nineteen eighty four by a puzzle happy programmer,

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<v Speaker 1>though Tetris was little more than an in house diversion

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<v Speaker 1>designed to break up serious minded twelve hour days at

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<v Speaker 1>the Russian Academy of Sciences. From that of Soviet controlled software,

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<v Speaker 1>Tetris has evolved into maybe the most famous computer game

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<v Speaker 1>the world has ever seen. It's a seemingly simple electronic

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<v Speaker 1>escape that's enjoyed in more than two hundred countries on

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<v Speaker 1>more than fifty separate platforms by millions of people playing

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<v Speaker 1>billions of games every year, and Tetris has been downloaded

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<v Speaker 1>on mobile devices alone more than four hundred and twenty

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<v Speaker 1>five million times, and keep in mind that download capable

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<v Speaker 1>mobile devices didn't really exist when creator Alexei Pajidov unveiled

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<v Speaker 1>the game to his coworkers in nineteen eighty four. Tetris

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<v Speaker 1>has also sold some seventy million physical copies for the

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<v Speaker 1>article this episode is based on how Stuffworks. Spoke with Pagidov,

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<v Speaker 1>he said, well, Tetris is a really good game, one

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<v Speaker 1>of the best. That's not very modest of me, but

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<v Speaker 1>that's the fact. Pasidov was born in Moscow in nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>fifty five. He was helping to develop early speech recognitions

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<v Speaker 1>at the Russian Academy of Sciences in nineteen eighty four

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<v Speaker 1>when he began building a computer game in his spare time.

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<v Speaker 1>The game featured tetronimos, that is, playing pieces made up

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<v Speaker 1>of four blocks like dominos, but Tetra is the prefix

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<v Speaker 1>for four. The tetronomos came in seven different shapes, from

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<v Speaker 1>straight lines to squares, and the object was to arrange

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<v Speaker 1>them as they fell into the playing field. He called

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<v Speaker 1>it Tetris after Tetra meaning four and his favorite sport, tennis.

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<v Speaker 1>The game was built on and initially played on, an

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<v Speaker 1>early Soviet computer, the Electronica sixty, which had no graphic capabilities.

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<v Speaker 1>Its monitor could only display text, still with letters serving

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<v Speaker 1>as the blocks of each Tetronimo. It was an instant

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<v Speaker 1>hit with Pachatov's colleagues. Pachatov said, the Computer Center was

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<v Speaker 1>a pretty serious kind of institute, very solid and very serious.

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<v Speaker 1>Nobody ever thought about creating a computer game. Basically, all

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<v Speaker 1>this was just an excuse for having fun among the programmers.

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<v Speaker 1>The game lingered for months inside the cavernous rooms at

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<v Speaker 1>the Center until Pajidov, pushed by his coworkers to make

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<v Speaker 1>it more accessible, assigned someone to port the game to

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<v Speaker 1>the much more popular IBMPC. Pajidov said, on the PC,

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<v Speaker 1>it starts its own life. It was like a forest fire.

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<v Speaker 1>It went everywhere. Eventually the game was saved onto floppy

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<v Speaker 1>disks and leaked into other countries. What followed were years

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<v Speaker 1>of legal and sometimes extra legal maneuvering outside of the

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<v Speaker 1>Soviet Union. People were eager to get their hands on

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<v Speaker 1>the game and to start selling it. The Soviet government,

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<v Speaker 1>which held all rights to Pachtov's work resisted. For example,

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<v Speaker 1>at one point a Hungarian software company thought that it

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<v Speaker 1>had secured the rights from Pajetov to sell the game

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<v Speaker 1>in the West, but that turned out to be a miscommunication.

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<v Speaker 1>A mere programmer in these bureaucracy didn't have the power

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<v Speaker 1>to authorize his creations licensing, and the Soviets declined to

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<v Speaker 1>give up control. By nineteen eighty eight, though, the Soviet

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<v Speaker 1>Ministry responsible for the export of computer hardware and software

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<v Speaker 1>gave its blessing and Tetris made its way onto PCs

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<v Speaker 1>in the United Kingdom and the US. But the real

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<v Speaker 1>Tetris explosion came a year later when the new handheld

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<v Speaker 1>gaming computer made by the Japanese firm Nintendo, the game Boy,

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<v Speaker 1>promised to include a Tetris cartridge with every Game Boy

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<v Speaker 1>sold in America if the Soviets agreed. One Hank Rogers,

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<v Speaker 1>a Dutch video game producer living in Japan, wound up

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<v Speaker 1>brokering the deal. He'd run across the game on PC

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<v Speaker 1>at the Consumer Electronics Show and saw its potential. Today

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<v Speaker 1>he's the president of the Tetris Company, which controls the

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<v Speaker 1>Tetris license. Rogers told CNN in twenty nineteen, I made

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<v Speaker 1>a handshake deal with Minoru Arakawa, founder of Nintendo of America,

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<v Speaker 1>to have Nintendo include Tetris in every game Boy. He said,

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<v Speaker 1>why should I include Tetris? I have Mario, And I said,

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<v Speaker 1>if you want little boys to buy your game Boy,

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<v Speaker 1>then include Mario. But if you want everyone to buy

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<v Speaker 1>your game Boy, then you should include Tetris. But the

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<v Speaker 1>Soviets were not yet convinced. Again, this was still in

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<v Speaker 1>the middle of the Cold War, and they were suspicious

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<v Speaker 1>of anything to do with the US. The KGB supposedly

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<v Speaker 1>got involved. Soviet leader Mikhel Gorbachev might have had to

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<v Speaker 1>say Rogers, with the lucrative deal hanging by thread, flew

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<v Speaker 1>to Moscow to try to convince the Soviets to sign

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<v Speaker 1>in on the agreement. He reportedly spent hours being questioned

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<v Speaker 1>by Soviet officials. The whole thing was so dramatic that

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<v Speaker 1>Apple Studios produced a feature length thriller about Rogers and

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<v Speaker 1>pachetobs or Deal. It debuted in twenty twenty three and

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<v Speaker 1>is called Tetris But Yes, the game that worked. The

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<v Speaker 1>Soviets agreed to a deal, perhaps as an exercise of

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<v Speaker 1>soft power. The original Tetris packaging included the slogan from

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<v Speaker 1>Russia with fun. It became part of the North American

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<v Speaker 1>game boy launch in nineteen eighty nine. Nintendo sold thirty

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<v Speaker 1>five million game boys that year, and Tetris boomed into

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<v Speaker 1>a worldwide phenomenon. The goal of conventional Tetris is to

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<v Speaker 1>control where and how the tetronomos fall so that they

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<v Speaker 1>fill up entire horizontal lines in the playing field. The

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<v Speaker 1>completed lines are eliminated from the field, clearing more space

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<v Speaker 1>to play. The more lines a player can completely fill

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<v Speaker 1>and eliminate before the blocks pile up to the top

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<v Speaker 1>of the playing field, the higher the score. It sounds simple,

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<v Speaker 1>and on the most basic level it is, but that's

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<v Speaker 1>part of the beauty of Tetris. Pajanov thinks of it

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<v Speaker 1>more like Chess than say Minecraft or Grand Theft Auto,

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<v Speaker 1>which are also in the top three be selling video

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<v Speaker 1>games of all time. Patchidov said Tetris is very deceptive.

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<v Speaker 1>It creates lots of illusions in the player's minds. You

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<v Speaker 1>have an extremely long learning curve. The normal video game,

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<v Speaker 1>you have thirty to forty hours learning curve. Tetris, to

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<v Speaker 1>my kind of thinking is one hundred and twenty hours.

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<v Speaker 1>In many ways, the game is so simple that it's

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<v Speaker 1>nearly mystical. It's so easy that it's seldom mastered. Tetris

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<v Speaker 1>is now one of the most awarded games in history,

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<v Speaker 1>and has had numerous spin offs over the years, all

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<v Speaker 1>of them now licensed by the Tetris Company. The game,

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<v Speaker 1>in its various forms, is played on smartphones, tablets, computers,

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<v Speaker 1>and basically every video game system, including virtual reality headsets.

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<v Speaker 1>An annual tournament featuring the nineteen eighty nine version of

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<v Speaker 1>Tetris on the original Nintendo Entertainment System began in twenty ten.

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<v Speaker 1>The Classic Tetris World Championship now hosts over twenty live

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<v Speaker 1>events around the world, ending in the champion every summer.

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<v Speaker 1>Through all these years Pastadov has missed out on potentially

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<v Speaker 1>millions of dollars in royalties, but he said that he's

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<v Speaker 1>content with what is created because of its lasting worth. Quote.

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<v Speaker 1>At some moment, I had a choice either start to

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<v Speaker 1>fight for my rights and spend the rest of my

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<v Speaker 1>life fighting. I decide that if God gave me such

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<v Speaker 1>a gift to create such a game, I will create

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<v Speaker 1>another game and go about it another way. The most

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<v Speaker 1>important thing is to give this game to the people.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode is based on the article how Tetris went

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<v Speaker 1>from Soviet mindgame to smash Hit on HowStuffWorks dot Com,

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<v Speaker 1>written by John Donovan. Brain stuff It's production of iHeartRadio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com, misproduced by Tyler Klang.

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<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.