History of Tetris. How it really was. How the creator of tetris fought with the USSR for income from the invention of Tetris creation story
Surely each of you had Tetris in your childhood. Did you know that it was invented by the Soviet programmer Alexei Pajitnov and he did it in two weeks? Today we will tell you about this iconic toy and its inventor.
Mid 80s. A time covered in legends. For example, one of them says that in 1984, in the head of a young employee of the Moscow Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Yevgeny Veselov, who spent his vacation in the Crimea, the idea of a multi-window text editor E-9 was born. Later, it will become the prototype of the well-known "Lexicon", the author of which, again according to legend, in the process of testing the product will encourage the most distinguished "bug hunters" with beer...
In those years, quite a few people worked at the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, to whom the label of “legendary personalities” was subsequently firmly and regardless of their desire: Evgeny Veselov, Anton Chizhov, Arkady Borkovsky. Among them was Aleksey Pajitnov, a man whom fate prepared to become a kind of mirror of the changes that began with Mikhail Gorbachev's coming to power. While working at the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Pajitnov dealt with problems artificial intelligence and speech recognition. According to him, at that time he quite often had to write game programs- a good toolkit for testing new equipment. Most of all, Alexey was attracted to puzzle games. He especially liked the classic Pentomino Puzzle, in which twelve types of flat figures, consisting of five square elements arranged differently, must be put together in a certain order so as to obtain a given shape.
To begin with, Pajitnov wrote a program that changed the position of the figures, rotating them 90 degrees relative to the center of gravity. At that moment, as he later recalled, he thought that in real time it would look amazing. However, in order for the game to “run” in real time, computational resources were required, which the then microcomputers did not possess. And Pajitnov simplified the puzzle by taking figures consisting not of five, but of four square elements, which determined the name of the game - "Tetris" from the Greek tetra ("four").
The year was 1985. It took Pajitnov about two weeks to write Tetris in Pascal for Elektronika-60, as he himself says. Alexey's colleagues at work were delighted with his program, but he himself understood that the audience of the game could be expanded only if it was ported to the IBM PC. Pajitnov was helped in this by his friend Vadim Gerasimov, and in a few weeks the whole computer Moscow already knew what Tetris was.
The further history of "Tetris" is full of adventures. In 1986, the game enters the international arena - Hungarian programmers port Tetris to the Apple II and Commodore 64 platforms. These programs catch the eye of Robert Stein, president of the British company Andromeda. At first, as evidenced by a number of sources, Stein intended to acquire the rights to the PC version of Tetris directly from Pajitnov or from the USSR Academy of Sciences, and for all the rest from the "Hungarian comrades". However, before starting negotiations with the Soviet side, Stein grants Mirrorsoft and its American subsidiary Spectrum Holobyte the rights to all variations of Tetris, with the exception of console and handheld versions. Only a few months later, Stein appears in Moscow and tries to enter into negotiations regarding the acquisition of the rights to Tetris by him - to no avail. As Western sources would later write, the Russians compensated for their lack of copyright knowledge with their incredible stubbornness.
Meanwhile, Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft are releasing their own version of Tetris, adding to the game high-quality graphics and sound by the standards of that time, as well as “Russian flavor” - Yuri Gagarin, Matias Rust, who shortly before that landed his sports aircraft on Red Square, and other characters appropriate to the occasion. Before our eyes, a sensation is born - the first game because of the "Iron Curtain"!
By the fall of 1987, persistent Stein gets the rights to versions of "Tetris" for IBM PC-compatible and "all other computer systems", but ... he still does not have any agreements with Soviet organizations. Stein's plan to establish control over Tetris, bypassing everything connected with the USSR, almost succeeded. But the CBS television company unexpectedly intervenes in the matter - an interview with Alexei Pajitnov, who is presented to the audience as the developer of the game, appears on its air.
The foreign trade association Electronorgtechnika, established under the Ministry of Foreign Trade, is joining the negotiations with Stein (this organization still exists, of course, in the form joint-stock company, and rather modest). It is difficult to assess how powerful this structure was in the 80s, but it is known that employees of its foreign offices were sent home on suspicion of espionage. However, the same thing periodically happened to employees of other Soviet foreign economic departments.
The leaders of Elektronorgtekhnika quickly realize that Stein, having virtually no rights to Tetris, is in full control of them. The rights formally do not belong to Elektronorgtekhnika itself either. It operates with them on behalf of the state - new economic relations are just beginning to emerge in the USSR.
By May 1988, with Tetris firmly on the US and UK computer game bestseller lists, Stein finally manages to get the rights to the computer versions of the game from the Soviet side, but not to its variations for game consoles and pocket computers. Luck smiles on him, and Stein hurries to grab her by the tail with both hands. The Englishman is trying to persuade the management of Elektronorgtekhnika to transfer the rights to the console versions of Tetris to him. Stein wants too much at once, but in matters of financial payments he is in no hurry at all, which cannot but cause annoyance among his partners on the Soviet side.
While Stein is wasting his time persuading Elektronorgtekhnika executives, Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft are sublicensing the rights to develop console versions of Tetris to Bullet-Proof Software and Atari Games, respectively. In this case, the first gets the opportunity to develop programs only for systems sold in the Japanese market. The conditions of the second are much more favorable - its "area of responsibility" includes Japan and the United States.
Both Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft are essentially owned by media mogul Robert Maxwell. A conflict between them is inevitable, but its flame will not flare up immediately. In the meantime, Maxwell takes the side of Mirrorsoft - the British shirt is closer to the body. In the future, this will still be reflected in the course of events. Bullet-Proof Software re-acquires the rights to release the Tetris console for the Japanese market. In November 1988, the company introduced Tetris for the Famicom video game consoles, the analogue of which is known in America under the Nintendo Entertainment System trademark. A total of 2 million Tetris cartridges for the Famicom will be sold.
Early 1989 Development of the Game Boy handheld gaming computer is in full swing at Nintendo. Minoru Arakawa, head of the firm's US division, urges Bullet-Proof Software president Henk Rogers to negotiate with Stein about the possibility of developing a Game Boy version of Tetris. He agrees, but Stein does not respond to attempts to contact him. Then Rogers flies to Moscow. Feeling something was wrong, Stein follows him to the capital of the USSR. Kevin Maxwell, the son of a media mogul, also flies there. The denouement is approaching - all three arrive in the Mother See almost simultaneously.
Rogers is the first to be met at Electronorgtekhnika. The president of Bullet-Proof Software already knows Pajitnov and Vladimir Pokhilko, who was a professor of psychology at Moscow State University before joining the development of computer games. Rogers makes a favorable impression on the interlocutors and concludes a contract according to which his company can now develop versions of Tetris for handheld devices. After that, he proudly demonstrates to his newly-minted partners ... the Famicom version of Tetris. Silent scene. Officials from Electronorgtekhnika are shocked - Rogers did not have the right to create console versions of the game!
Here we need to make a small digression. Everything that is said in this article took place in Soviet times, when the awareness of citizens about what was happening in the country and abroad left much to be desired. For various reasons, the participants in the events of those years, for the most part, are not very willing to share their memories, and therefore information has to be collected literally bit by bit from a variety of sources. It is also not always easy to check them, so we cannot vouch for the absolute reliability of all the facts presented in this material. However, all of them were subjected to careful analysis, during which the versions of various sources were compared with each other, and the facts, the plausibility of which aroused suspicion, were discarded. We have no reason to assert that in fact everything happened differently, but we will be grateful for clarifications, corrections and additions to the information we have.
So we left the president of Bullet-Proof Software in February 1989 in Moscow in a very interesting position. Aware that the deal is on the verge of collapse, Rogers tries to explain the nature of his relationship with Spectrum Holobyte, Mirrorsoft and Tengen, Atari Games' console game division. He had to acquire the rights to his Japanese "Tetris" also from Tengen. And that, in turn, having a license to develop programs for the Nintendo Entertainment System, made a special chip that allows you to bypass the security mechanisms of Nintendo and create cartridges for this game system for companies that are not Nintendo licensees. The controversy between Nintendo and Atari (with Atari Games and Tengen) is so deep that almost no one doubts the long-term legal confrontation between these firms. Looking ahead, it should be noted that this is what eventually happened - the proceedings between Nintendo and Atari continued until 1993.
Realizing that the decisive moment has come and there is a chance to get all the rights to the console versions of Tetris, Rogers discards all doubts about Atari (after all, Nintendo is on his side, which is also good). He pulls out... a checkbook to pay the royalties on already sold Famicom Tetris cartridges. On the same day, Stein was received at Elektronorgtekhnika. He signs an addendum to the contract he already has, in which the computer is characterized as a system that has such components as a processor, monitor, disk drive (one or more), keyboard and operating system. He would later realize that this was part of a plan conceived by Rogers. In the meantime, Stein is promised that, although he cannot yet get the rights to the Tetris versions for handheld computers, he will be able to conclude a contract for the console versions, if he so desires.
Stein, of course, wants to, but the contract with him will be signed three days later - after Kevin Maxwell visits Electronorgtekhnika and they show him the Tetris cartridge for the Famicom. Completely ignorant of the activities of the company founded by his father, Kevin initially refuses to believe his interlocutors. However, the inscription is clearly visible on the cartridge - Mirrorsoft. The younger Maxwell has no choice but to state that this is, in all likelihood, a pirated copy. But now the Russians don't trust Kevin.
In March 1989, Rogers returned to Moscow, followed by Arakawa and Nintendo's American CEO, Howard Lincoln. Elektronorgtekhnika assures them that if the Tetris topic comes up in a lawsuit between Atari and Nintendo (and it will come up!), then Nintendo can count on "Moscow's help." The meeting ends with the signing of a contract, the amount of which is estimated by various sources from 3 to 5 million dollars.
Nintendo officially notifies Atari Games that they do not have the rights to legally release Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Only two weeks later, Tengen will apply for a copyright on this product.
Robert Maxwell is furious - the positions of Mirrorsoft and Atari need to be urgently strengthened. In an attempt to reverse the situation, he uses the resources of his empire, which includes the newspaper concern Mirror Newspaper Group (in England) and Macmillan publishing house (in the USA). Maxwell's connections are extensive - it was not without reason that he was called "probably not only a Soviet agent" at that time. The governments of Great Britain and the USSR enter into a dialogue with the magnate. From Moscow, Maxwell is assured that he "does not have to worry about the Japanese company." Some sources are still confident that the message was sent personally by Mikhail Gorbachev.
The moment of truth is approaching. In April, Lincoln once again flies to Moscow and is convinced that Electronorgtekhnika does not want to yield to the authorities. Tengen releases Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System in May. In June, hearings begin in Nintendo v. Tengen and Atari Games. June 15 Judge Fern Smith (Fern Smith) decides in favor of Nintendo - Tengen prohibited the production and sale of "Tetris". A little more time passes, and Nintendo introduces the Game Boy, which, of course, includes Tetris.
The end of our story, alas, is quite typical of the "perestroika" events. While disagreeing on precise estimates, most analysts agree that over 30 million Game Boys have been sold since 1989. This, however, did not bring any income to Alexei Pajitnov. He did not receive, "of course", and deductions from numerous clones of "Tetris", not all of whose creators were equally disinterested. However, it would be an exaggeration to say that the author of Tetris suffered hardships - by Soviet standards, Alexei's life looked quite prosperous.
In 1988, with the help of Rogers, he and Pokhilko managed to organize AnimaTek in Moscow. Like Electronorgtekhnika, this company also did not stop its activities, only its headquarters were relocated to San Francisco. Now AnimaTek is still working on 3D generation tools. virtual worlds. The technologies of this company were successfully used in such famous projects as Age of Empires (Microsoft), War Zone 2100 (Pumpkin Studios/Eidos), Final Fantasy Tactics (Square).
In 1991 Pajitnov left for America. Rogers remained his friend and helped organize the Tetris firm. Through her, Alexey finally began to receive income from Tetris with the help of ... another Rogers company - Blue Planet Software.
In the same 1991, under unclear circumstances, the life of media mogul Robert Maxwell ended, whose role in all the ups and downs around Tetris now, after more than ten years, seems rather strange.
Went to America and Vladimir Pokhilko. He remained president of AnimaTek until his tragic death in September 1998, when 44-year-old Pokhilko, his wife and son were found dead with signs of violent death in their Palo Alto home.
In October 1996, Pajitnov joined the Microsoft development team creating new computer puzzles. In September 1999, Microsoft released the Pandora's Box series of puzzle games, emphasizing that the project was headed by "famous Tetris developer Aleksey Pajitnov"...
All or almost all great things are created by chance. Further, this accident (sooner or later) becomes the property of the world and changes the lives of many people.
Tetris is one such accident. uncomplicated logic puzzle, written in 1985 by an employee of the Computing Center at the USSR Academy of Sciences Alexei Pajitnov for himself and his colleagues, gained worldwide fame in a short time, provoked a major scandal, a series of litigations and, ultimately, remained in history as the most popular computer game of all times.
Storm in a glass
The idea of Tetris was born by Aleksey Pajitnov in 1984 after getting acquainted with the puzzle of the American mathematician Solomon Golomb Pentomino Puzzle. The essence of this puzzle was quite simple and painfully familiar to any contemporary: from several figures it was necessary to assemble one large one. Alexey decided to make a computer version of pentomino.
Pajitnov not only took the idea, but also supplemented it - in his game, it was necessary to collect figures in a glass in real time, and the figures themselves consisted of five elements (from the Greek. " penta”- five) and during the fall they had to rotate around their own center of gravity. But the computers of the Computing Center turned out to be unable to do this - the electronic pentomino simply did not have enough resources. Then Aleksey decides to reduce the number of blocks that made up the falling figures to four. So from the pentomino we got the tetramino (from the Greek. “ tetra" - four). Alexey calls the new game Tetris - from the words " tetramino" and " tennis».
Pajitnov wrote the first version of the game quickly, based on seven figures, which later became the standard set of Tetris. In that version, not even graphic images of figures fell into the glass, but their textual counterparts, in which the squares were made up of opening and closing brackets. This was done not out of a good life, but forcedly: the Elektronika-60 computer, on which Tetris was created, did not even have a monitor, but a display that could display only letters and numbers (no graphics!) And only in 24 lines of 80 characters in each.
The same Pentomino Puzzle. |
“For several months it was such an incomprehensible work that was actually not even visible: something is changing on the screen, Lesha is snoring, Lesha is walking around there, smoking a huge amount of cigarettes ...- recalls Mikhail Kulagin, one of the employees of the Computing Center. - And suddenly he called us to watch the game. And he says: look, guys, it turns out like this. The famous glass appeared on the screen, into which some figures fell. To be honest, I didn’t even understand what the point was right away ... "
The first version of Tetris was created in the then popular Pascal language and looked rather primitive. But the game worked, and how it worked! Such a simple idea, when the tetramino figures fall, and the filled rows disappear, and subsequently gave amazing results.
After eight months, Pajitnov decided to port the game to the PC. At that time, this was a big problem, because networks were still dead, and compatible media did not exist (that is, in order to exchange data between different computers, one had to look for special disks that read the format at the physical level). Aleksey himself had no experience working on a PC, so to port the game he attracted a sixteen-year-old schoolboy Vadim Gerasimov, who was known as a young genius in the Computing Center and everyone ran to him for advice.
Porting the game to the PC took only three or four days, and a few more days were spent on debugging the timer, adjusting the work with the screen, and the like. But that was just the beginning, then Alexey and Vadim fiddled around for about half a year to make Tetris color, add a table of records (they used a ready-made program for displaying on the screen written by Dmitry Pavlovsky, Pajitnov's colleague) and a protection system so that they could then prove their authorship (any software in the USSR was distributed free of charge, and they did not see anything shameful in this). It took a lot of effort to add support for different types of displays (!). Now it sounds ridiculous, but then there were no uniform standards and the game had to be adapted for each display, and this greatly spoiled the code. All this took half a year, but not because of the large amount of work, but because both Alexei and Vadim had their own affairs and they dealt with Tetris only occasionally.
Much later, Mikhail Potemkin, also an employee of the Computing Center, made his contribution to Tetris. He ported the game to the next version of the Electronics computer and was the first to add automatic garbage loading (this is when you start a game and the glass is already half full).
Tetris was distributed on 5.25-inch floppy disks that were gaining popularity at that time by banal copying from friends. For two weeks, the game spread throughout Moscow, and then throughout the USSR. The success was just phenomenal. The game was completely free, Pajitnov didn’t even think about getting some benefit from it: the Computing Center had the rights to Tetris (as well as to any program written within its walls), so Alexey would rather end up in prison than behind a computer keyboard. The sale of such things was already in the competence of the state.
Beyond the cordon
The first foreigners who got acquainted with Tetris were Budapesters from the Institute for Cybernetics Problems, with whom the Computing Center collaborated (this happened in 1986). They liked the game, and they quickly ported it to the computer Commodore 64, produced by the company Commodore International since August 1982, and on apple 2, the first computer mass-produced Apple Computer since 1977. Just at that time, Robert Stein, a Hungarian of English origin, the owner of a British company Andromeda Software who developed software. Stein was well versed in games, so when he saw Tetris, he immediately decided to buy the rights to it. Robert contacted Pajitnov, agreed to buy the rights, without naming, however, any specific numbers, received the initial "go-ahead" and promised to send an official agreement within a couple of days. But because of the Iron Curtain, the correspondence dragged on for many weeks.
Robert Stein. |
Meanwhile, Stein, realizing how much money can be made on Tetris, is all impatient and, unable to stand it and having absolutely no official rights, offers the game to his partners from a British company mirror soft. They doubted the attractiveness of the game, but sent it for an alternative test to their American colleagues from Spectrum Holobyte. The Americans immediately saw what a huge potential lurked in Tetris, and reported to the UK that they needed to get the rights to sell this wonderful game as soon as possible. The result was a contract between Andromeda Software and Mirrorsoft worth just £3,000 and 7-15% (depending on the number of copies sold) of the sales profit. Alexey didn't even know about all this.
Stein had to somehow legalize the whole thing, and already in the winter of 1985 he went to Moscow with the firm intention of concluding a contract with the real owners of the rights to the game. However, such things as official negotiations with foreigners and conclusion of contracts with foreign companies were no longer handled by employees of the Computing Center, but by state bodies, in this case, people from the top of the Academy of Sciences. And these people were not interested in Stein's proposal - either the amount seemed small, or they simply treated him with distrust. The Hungarian had to leave with nothing.
Meanwhile, the Americans at Spectrum Holobyte had no idea that neither they nor anyone else other than Pajitnov actually owned the rights to Tetris. The Cold War between the USSR and the USA is still in full swing, any Russian product, even if at first sight unremarkable, immediately arouses interest among the Americans. What can we say about such unusual game like tetris. Spectrum Holobyte's PR department does not sleep and reshapes the game externally in accordance with the most common American stereotypes: they add communist sketches, portraits of famous Russians, and play Russian folk songs like "Kalinka-Malinka" and "Oh, uhnem!" as musical accompaniment. Only untouched remains game mechanics. In general, Tetris is turning into a full-fledged commercial product, which must have both a developer and a publisher with the appropriate rights.
It was already 1987, in America and Britain Spectrum Holobyte was already preparing a PC version of Tetris with might and main, and Stein still did not have the rights to the game, that is, the release, in fact, was illegal. Stein couldn't get the rights, and at the same time he didn't know how to tell his colleagues in Europe and the US that the launch of the game needed to be delayed. In the end, he didn’t do anything and didn’t say anything to anyone.
In 1988, the Western PC version of Tetris was released.
The first commercial version of Tetris from Mirrorsoft. |
For three persons
In the West, Tetris became popular even faster than in the USSR. The game sells well and wins several prestigious American Software Association awards: Best Entertainment Program, Best Dynamic and Strategy Program, Best Original Game Development, and Best Consumer Software. Before that, no game could achieve such recognition. It was a big success. There was even a story that Tetris was specially developed by the KGB to paralyze the Western economy: everyone who had computers in the office played it all day long.
Hank Rogers. |
Meanwhile, Alexei left the Computing Center and moved to the organization "Electronic equipment"(or simply ELORGE), which was assigned to the Academy of Sciences and which now had to defend international rights to Tetris.
At this time, Stein was attacked from all sides: the Russians demanded to resolve the out of control situation, and Robert's compatriots, especially when Tetris became such a popular game in the West, began to delve into the details. The ubiquitous journalists from the television and radio company CBS go to Alexei Pajitnov and interview him. Stein had no choice but to sign the unfortunate contract on the Russians' terms.
It would seem that, " wow, finally!", but it was not there. Nikolai Belikov, an ELORG employee who had to defend the rights to Tetris, recalled: “When I read the contract with Andromeda Software, I felt bad. This agreement stated that the first payment was to be made within three months. The agreement was signed on May 10, 1988, and it was already October. After that, I began to think about what to do with this agreement and how to get Andromeda Software to pay money.
Abroad, the British Mirrorsoft, already convinced of the prospects of Tetris, asks Stein to purchase the rights to the console and arcade versions from the Russians, and in the meantime sells (without permission) the rights to the arcade version of the game to an American company Atari, which, in turn, immediately resold them to the Japanese SEGA, at the time one of the largest gaming companies in the world.
Andromeda Software, represented by Stein, sent telexes to ELORG with a request to start negotiations on a new license agreement, received an unequivocal answer: first fulfill the terms of the first agreement, only after that we will begin negotiations on the next contact.
Just at this time, Tetris is released in Japan on the PC and game console famicom(NES) from nintendo and diverges as a result in more than two million copies (!).
Tetris was noticed by the president of the American division of Nintendo, Minoru Arakawa. At one of the exhibitions, he accidentally saw Tetris and was eager to acquire the rights to its console version. Having found out that the rights currently belong to Atari (which was sincerely sure of this, since it believed that it had honestly bought the corresponding rights from Mirrorsoft), Arakawa becomes somewhat upset: Atari and Nintendo at that time were the worst competitors who endlessly sued each other. with a friend. However, another lucky break brings him into contact with Hank Rogers, the owner of a small Japanese firm. Bullet Proof Software, to which the American Spectrum Holobyte sold the rights to sell the PC version of Tetris in the Japanese market. The rest of the rights were held by Atari at the time, but Rogers was able to secure the rights to the console version of the game for the Japanese market as well. At this very moment, he meets Arakawa. Nintendo desperately needed the rights to the console version of the game, and she was not interested in the price, since the launch of a portable console was on the nose game boy, whose success in the case of the acquisition of Tetris would be even more predictable.
Rogers first negotiates with Stein, but, realizing that something is not right, he traces the entire chain and goes straight to Moscow, where he immediately goes. Stein also does not just sit around and decides to personally meet with representatives of Elektronorgtekhnika for a face-to-face conversation. At the same time, Kevin Maxwell, the son of media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who owned Mirrorsoft and Spectrum Holobyte, also went to Moscow.
On February 21, 1989, Nikolai Belikov received a call from the protocol department and was informed that a foreigner from Japan had arrived to him, his name was Hank Rogers, and this was a violation of the regime that existed at that time - such meetings had to be agreed in advance and given information to the protocol department (which per person, what will be discussed, what is the purpose of the negotiations, etc.). Hank had to come back the next day.
On February 22, Nikolai will meet with three people at once who need the same thing - the rights to Tetris. He did not want either of them to meet each other, so he carefully thought out the schedule of meetings.
Hank Rogers was the first to come to Belikov's office. Here is what Nikolai Belikov said about this meeting: “As soon as we sat down at the table with Mr. Rogers, he immediately took out a game console and said: “Mr. Belikov, I sell your product very successfully.” I answered him: “ELORG did not give anyone the right to release Tetris on game consoles. The only company to which any rights have been assigned is Andromeda Software, and they only apply to the personal computer version. You are illegally selling something that does not belong to you.” Rogers, of course, was shocked. In the end, he said: “I just didn’t know ... Excuse me, I want to work with you, I have very good connections with Nintendo, the largest in the world gaming company. She has 70% of the market." I offered only one solution - a purely bureaucratic move: "Mr. Rogers, please write everything down on paper." Hank said "okay" and I sent him out right away - Robert Stein was about to come in and I didn't want them to meet."
Then Robert Stein comes to ELORG. Belikov tells him: “Mr. Stein, tell me honestly, what is the name of this document?” He replies: "Agreement." I say that this is not an agreement, but a set of some irresponsible phrases, according to which one party transferred the rights, and the other party does not fulfill them, does not compensate for the right to use these rights. As a result, this meeting was also postponed to the next day.
« By the time Kevin Maxwell arrived, I already knew that he was the son of Robert Maxwell, a very powerful man, one of the richest in the world,- continues Belikov, - so of course I was very stressed. I asked, "Mr. Kevin Maxwell, where does Mirrorsoft get the rights to sell Tetris on game consoles?" And then Maxwell suddenly said: “This is pirated version. We don't have any rights." I asked, "Are you interested in getting the rights to the console version?" Maxwell: "Yes, of course." I say: “When can you make an offer?” - "I need to return to the UK, and I will send our proposal very quickly."
Alexey Pajitnov was most interested in Hank Rogers and his proposal. Kevin Maxwell was too complex a person, he looked down on everyone, and it was repulsive. Thus, Stein got only the rights to the arcade version of the game (and exorbitant prices at that). Hank soon returned with representatives from Nintendo, and on March 21, 1989, all rights to the console version of Tetris were transferred to them. Maxwell Jr., left with nothing, realized that the positions of Mirrorsoft and Atari were under threat, and complained to his father. Robert Maxwell accused Belikov of disrupting trade relations between England and the USSR by his actions. Everyone needed to act quickly and decisively.
On March 23, Belikov receives a telex (something like a fax that ours didn’t have at the time) from Kevin Maxwell, in which he said that Nikolai had made a number of mistakes and that the issue would be raised during President Gorbachev’s visit to England. In a word, there were continuous threats in the telex, and serious ones at that. Then Belikov got a call from the person who was preparing Gorbachev's visit and strongly suggested that he immediately fly to London, kneel before Robert Maxwell and beg him not to say a word to Gorbachev, because otherwise, if he says even one word, then Belikova " just won't».
Nikolai, like any normal person who would be in such a situation, was simply scared. But he was lucky: it was 1989, the time of the big perestroika, so everything worked out. If it had been 1988, then the story would have been different, Nikolai is sure of this.
In June 1989, all these disputes resulted in a lawsuit between Atari and Nintendo. Belikov also had to take part in it from Electronorgtekhnika on the side of Nintendo. Before leaving, Nikolai was invited to the State Committee for Computer Science and Informatics, where they said that if the lawsuit was lost, a special commission would be created to consider how much " millions of American dollars the Soviet state lost from your ill-considered actions».
The court eventually ruled that Mirrorsoft did not own any rights, and therefore the contract with Atari was invalid - hundreds of thousands of cartridges went to the warehouse. When Hank told Nikolai that they won and took him to ride around San Francisco with the receiver turned on at full volume, while violating every conceivable traffic rule, it was only after a while that a sense of reality began to return to him - now he could safely return home without fear.
Tetris has become one of the most popular games of all time. The Game Boy bundled with which the game was sold, not least thanks to Tetris, sold more than 30 million copies in the first few years, and the game cartridges themselves sold about 15 million. Subsequently, the Game Boy became one of the most successful consoles in all the history of electronic entertainment. Directly Tetris brought Nintendo about $ 2-3 billion (taking into account all ports, versions and royalties). For twenty years the game (including official statistics, electronic devices and illegal sales) sold a fantastic circulation, which is estimated at about a quarter of a billion copies. Such popularity, probably, could not be achieved by any title in the world. And even get closer. And it is not certain that it will ever be possible.
Unfortunately, Aleksey himself did not receive any money from Tetris until 1996 - at first the state, represented by ELORGA, had the rights to the game, and after the collapse of the Union in 1991, they were inherited by ELORG itself, which Belikov then reorganized into a private company. They could not even pay a good bonus to Alexei, because this money had to be coordinated with the leadership of the Academy of Sciences.
After Tetris
In this whole story, the fate of Alexei Pajitnov was not easy, but interesting. After all these scandals around Tetris, Alexey understands that you can make quite real money on games, and a lot of it. In 1989, he and his old friend Vladimir Pokhilko (a psychologist who first saw the potential of Tetris) and a new friend Hank Rogers created a studio AnimaTek where he developed logic games and issues of artificial intelligence. At first, things went pretty well. The studio completed a couple of large orders and took part in the development of more than three hundred games (some of its developments were used in Age of Empires and Final Fantasy Tactics). But in the late 80s and early 90s, everyone in the USSR had no time for games, and in 1991 Alexey moved to San Francisco, where AnimaTek headquarters were opened. Vladimir Pokhilko was appointed Managing Director of the studio.
However, in the US, AnimaTek's fate is also not easy: the company releases some good, innovative animation games, but they never get recognition. A couple more 3D modeling programs come out from AnimaTek's pen, after which it closes.
In 1993, Pajitnov and his family moved to the United States, with the help of Hank Rogers, with whom they enter into an agreement to jointly manage the rights to Tetris after 1995, when ELORG runs out of these rights and they will have to go to Alexei.
In February 1995, between Nintendo, ELORG and Hank Rogers, who creates specially for this in Hawaii new company Blue Planet Software, negotiations begin about the future of the rights to Tetris. All three parties were a bit taken aback as no one thought the game would remain popular for so long. Nintendo receives the exclusive right to sell Tetris worldwide for three years on all of its platforms. In the Japanese market, this right is assigned to Blue Planet Software.
The following year, Pajitnov and Rogers founded The Tetris Company, which is created specifically to consolidate the rights to Tetris and resolve licensing issues. Sony receives the right to sell the game for three years on PlayStation in Japan, Hasbro- in the USA.
In 2002, Rogers creates Blue Lava Wireless, which is responsible for the development of mobile versions. Tetris is fast becoming the most popular mobile game.
Three years later, in 2005, the last negotiations between Blue Planet Software and ELORG finally took place regarding the transfer of all other rights to Tetris. In January, Aleksey and Hank again found a new company, now Tetris Holding Company, to which all rights to Tetris are finally assigned. Rogers sells Blue Lava Wireless for $137M to mobile giant in April Jamdat, and it, in turn, is soon bought by Electronic Arts and assigns the rights to all mobile versions of Tetris to its division EA Mobile Games.
Now Rogers' company is working on creating new innovative mechanics (without changing the basic principles) for Tetris, which should keep the interest in the game for years to come.
Our person
As for Alexei himself, almost nothing was heard about him after 1991. In life, Pajitnov is a kind, in a good way simple, canonically Russian peasant; not at all pretentious, even when he says that his inventions were always ahead of their time. Our call found him at home in Seattle.
[Gambling] Good morning, Alexey. We are, however, already late in the evening. Straight to the point. To be honest, we are not completely clear who contributed what to Tetris. The fact is that Vadim Gerasimov wrote rather strange things on his website (he himself never got in touch with us). According to him, you once asked him to sign a certain paper, according to which: 1) his participation was limited only to porting the game to the PC (although this, apparently, was the case); 2) he gave you the right to conduct all Tetris business; 3) refused any remuneration in his favor. So what does all this mean?
[Pajitnov] Yes, there was something like that. In 1989, I submitted Tetris to a computer game competition held by the Komsomol District Committee of the city of Zelenograd, and I probably needed this piece of paper in order to confirm authorship. In the competition, the game, by the way, took second place ...
Ah, I think I understand what you're talking about. In the late 80s, an article was published in one of the newspapers, from which it followed that Vadim created Tetris from beginning to end. Well, you know, as it usually happens: some journalist came to the Computing Center, asked who was the most interesting person here, and they pointed him to Vadim - like a schoolboy, and academicians run to consult him. The journalist was delighted and dashed off the article, without even bothering to figure out what and how. Of course, I didn’t deal with any denials, but I just needed to stake out my priority and I asked Vadim to write a paper stating that he participated in the conversion, but had nothing to do with the creation of the game itself. In fact, it was so, because porting is a purely technical work, and the concept itself was invented by me. Ultimately, this piece of paper was never needed (the Western partners took my word for it), except for me and Vadim, no one even saw it.
It's a pity, of course, that Vadim didn't get anything, although, they say, the Computing Center still gave him a computer.
[Gambling] And since when did you start getting income from Tetris? Since 1996, when did ELORG expire its rights to it?
[Pajitnov] Yes, since 1996. The Computing Center itself could not pay me anything with all its desire - by the time the game was recognized in the West and began to bring in money, I was already working at ELORG. But I don't regret it, I was ready for it. Back in 1986, I transferred the rights to the Computing Center so that it could license the game for Western companies through ELORG. ELORG was the only organization in the USSR that had the right to sell software abroad.
[Gambling] Do you know how much ELORG earned on Tetris?
[Pajitnov] It's hard to give exact numbers, but most of the money was probably earned on the Game Boy. The game was sold in one box with the Game Boy, and it was a very popular console and there were very large circulations. If my memory serves me right, from each copy ELORGE received either $0.5 or $0.25.
On the other hand, a lot of money was spent on legal costs (there were always proceedings there) and the prosecution of pirates.
[Gambling] So the popularity of the Game Boy owes a lot to Tetris?
[Pajitnov] And Tetris "Game Boy". They were simply made for each other - however, created by chance and independently.
About money matters, you'd better ask someone from ELORG, if, of course, this organization is still alive. Fortunately, I had no access to their papers.
[Gambling] We contacted them, but they never got in touch. By the way, it would be interesting to trace the history of circulation of rights to Tetris. Shortly after the creation of the game, you transferred the rights to it to the Computing Center, and from there they passed to ELORG. In 1991, when the Union collapsed, Belikov privatized ELORG and registered the rights to himself. In 1996, their rights expired, but even after that, the lawsuit with them continued for a very long time. Only in 2005 did ELORG finally stop having anything to do with Tetris. Is everything right?
[Pajitnov] In general, yes. I personally tried not to interfere in all these proceedings, so I don’t know the details. In 1996, we first tried to fight ELORG, but then we decided to cut the rights in half, although this was not entirely my decision. In business, it's always better to negotiate.
[Gambling] Almost nothing is known about what you were doing in the early 90s. Tell me?
[Pajitnov] Oh, it was an interesting time. The results of my work during that period were not particularly noticeable, but I was very busy. I made some puzzles Hatris, Wordtris, Breakthru! and others), then took up a three-dimensional aquarium simulator El fish, but this project was ahead of its time, like almost everything I do. Now three-dimensional aquariums are taken for granted, but then, in 1993, it was something on the verge of fantasy. El-Fish turned out to be so resource-intensive that even on a computer with a 386th processor, it barely moved, and as a result, no one really bought it. Although it is likely that it is not only system requirements: you could put homemade fish in this aquarium, and for most people they turned out to be quite ugly and because of this, interest in El-Fish was quickly lost.
Then I made more levels for some games, but I don’t remember which ones.
[Gambling] It would be interesting to know about the period of your work at Microsoft (1996-2005). Did you go there more for money or were you attracted by the opportunities of this company?
[Pajitnov] And for money too. The company where I worked before switched from games to 3D technologies, and I left there, and I had to earn money somehow. Then I approached Microsoft with a proposal to create a site with a paid subscription, where every day small puzzles would be laid out (future MSN Games). They liked the idea, and they took me. I worked on this project for two years, but at that time it was not very popular - the Internet was still in its infancy and online puzzles were, of course, by no means a priority for users. It is now casual games that everyone has eaten a bald patch, but then it was still too early to do this.
I really liked Microsoft. When I got there, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I knew that I could get a decent salary, I knew that the working conditions were good, but that was all. All the rest of my knowledge was at the level of stereotypes invented by programmers. They all scold Microsoft products, but they do it because they are forced to use them, because no one has produced anything comparable in scale and quality. Yes, they have a lot of errors and it's annoying, but there's nothing better anyway.
Microsoft is organized very rationally, mostly smart people work there, so the atmosphere is excellent. This was especially true at first. Of course, it also has its own bureaucracy, but after the Soviet Union, the entire American bureaucracy is generally pah.
The first three years the work went very quickly and efficiently. During this time I made two games, but then I started Pandora's Box and things slowed down a bit. It was a very original project in many respects, it took me (not to lie!) two and a half years. "Pandora's Box" included about 350 puzzles, while in total I made one and a half thousand - so that there was plenty to choose from. The games there were original, and in general it was a very big job. But she again overtook her time, although she beat off the expenses and gained some kind of popularity. While in Moscow, I saw on Gorbushka three different editions of Pandora's Box from three different pirate companies (!).
And then I began to stagnate due to the fact that Microsoft was on fire with the idea of \u200b\u200bmaking an Xbox. I was also strongly shoved there, and I myself was not opposed to getting involved, because the project looked promising. But somewhere halfway through, Microsoft rebuilt their marketing strategy: they decided not to make a "universal" console, but for such hardcore players - especially young people. We decided quite correctly, I think, but two out of three of my projects were immediately canceled because of this - puzzles are still not very interesting for teenagers.
[Gambling] And in what year did Microsoft start the Xbox project? In 1999?
[Pajitnov] Yes, about a year before the premiere. After they rebuilt the marketing strategy, I had a not the best period. Well, you know, it's a shame when you think over a project and suddenly - rrraz! - and it's cancelled. The hardest and most interesting stage is the beginning, when you work on the concept. At this moment, you love what you do most of all, and the cancellation of the project is perceived especially painfully.
But in general, cancellation is a normal practice. We somehow calculated with colleagues, it turned out that only 15% of games get to release. I have more efficiency (22-25%) than I am incredibly proud of.
When the Xbox didn't work out for me, I was offered to move to another group that dealt with small puzzles published on the Internet. This is just my part, so I immediately accepted the offer. As part of this group, I made Hexic and a few other games, but then I felt tired, and about two years ago I quit Microsoft.
[Game Addiction] The Xbox 360 online service has, among other things, Live Arcade, which sells casual and retro games. Were you involved in its development in any way, or was your participation limited to Hexic HD?
[Pajitnov] No, I did not participate in any way. Even Hexic HD already done without me. Of course, they showed it to me, but I did not take direct part in this project. Although I'm currently working on new version; However, we have not yet decided what it will be called - Hexic 2 or Hexic 360. Coming out this summer.
[Gambling] Have you had to participate in the development of "big" games? Well, there, action games, RPG...
[Pajitnov] I don't like action games, I don't like RPG either. At the concept stage, I participated a little bit, we even released one such game, but I don’t like to remember it. She was called Ice & Fire, was released in 1994 on the PC and PlayStation, but failed miserably. Making such games is very long and dreary, I don’t like it. How can I tell you... it's not god knows what, I can do it, but no better or worse than any other designer. But puzzles are mine, I'm good at them.
[Gambling] By the way, a lot of puzzles based on rhythm and music have appeared lately. Are you planning to do something along those lines?
[Pajitnov] We used to work on such a project. Ooooochen dreary thing, very heavy. You see, it is difficult to conceptualize something there, it should be done by musically sensitive, gifted people. And I am not like that. I passively participated in the development of one such project, but it was put on hold.
In general, I participated in a lot of things, but the only sense was when I was doing puzzles ( laughs). Here is now word games very popular, but I will never deal with them either - I just don’t like them. My element is abstract games with colors and shapes.
[Gambling] Do you follow the events in Russia, the state of the Russian gaming industry?
[Pajitnov] I used to watch closely, now somehow less. I stopped following her at the moment when such a dense, good market formed. Small but reliable. Three or four years ago, I was told that any game in Russian and on a Russian theme can be sold, albeit in a small but sufficient circulation. Even despite the penny prices, you can live.
[Gambling] Now everything has become more complicated. Prices for games are rising, but the quality of Russian projects remains unsatisfactory and this annoys the players.
[Pajitnov] Now there is a rather difficult entry of Russia into the world market. The same thing happened in Japan at the time. In the 80s, Japan was worse than today's China, they didn't even know about rights and things like that. But then everything somehow got better.
The first period is especially painful, but sooner or later everything will settle down. Everyone benefits from order and lack of piracy, because it greatly improves the quality of local games.
[Gambling] Not going back to Russia?
[Pajitnov] And I visit Russia very often. Last year I spent four months in Moscow. I have two projects going on in Russia, puzzles from the Kronstadt company WildSnak e. I once betrothed some of them Microsoft games, then did a couple more projects with them. After I left Microsoft, they asked for help, so I did. There is really nothing for me to do right now. However, it’s not necessary to go to Russia for the sake of this - Skype and ICQ are enough.
[Gambling] Do you mostly live in Seattle? Why we ask: your company-Tetris Holding-She's in Hawaii.
[Pajitnov] Yes, in Seattle. I also go to Hawaii, four or five times a year. There is a purely commercial enterprise, it is engaged in licensing and approving ready-made versions of Tetris for all platforms, I have nothing special to do there. When things pile up, I come.
[Gambling] Do you have the very first versions of Tetris, back in the 80s? Surely there are versions that no one except you and a few other people have seen.
[Pajitnov] Something has been preserved in Hawaii, we have a museum there. But in general, the answer is more no than yes. I have a box of old Tetris lying around somewhere, but they're all on 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disks. Drives for 3.5" floppy disks can still be found, for 5.25" - only in landfills or museums. After all, there must be a separate person who would make sure that everything was in working order and kept DOS alive on the computer. There is no such person, so everything goes into oblivion. Where is the road for him.
1 2 All
Tetris is a cult computer game invented by Alexey Pajitnov and presented to the public on June 6, 1984. The idea of "Tetris" was suggested to him by the pentomino game he bought.
Interest in the figures of dominoes, trominoes, tetraminos and pentominoes in the USSR arose thanks to the book by S. V. Golomb "Polyominoes". In particular, pentominoes were so popular that Science and Life had a permanent section in the 1970s devoted to building figures from a set of pentominoes, and plastic sets of pentominoes were sometimes sold in stores.
Tetris was first written by Alexey Pajitnov in June 1985 years on the computer Elektronika-60. While working at the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Pajitnov dealt with the problems of artificial intelligence and speech recognition, and used puzzles to test ideas, including the classic pentomino. Pajitnov tried to automate the stacking of pentominoes into predetermined figures. However, the computing power of the then equipment for the rotation of the pentomino was not enough, it was necessary to debug it on the tetramino, which determined the name of the game - "Tetris" (from other Greek τετράς - four). In those experiments, the main idea of "Tetris" was born - for the figures to fall, and the filled rows to disappear.
For the IBM PC, the game was rewritten by a 16-year-old student Vadim Gerasimov.
The game quickly spread throughout Moscow and beyond. When the game reached Budapest, Hungarian programmers implemented it on various platforms, and the game was "discovered" by the owner of the British software company Andromeda. He tried to negotiate first to patent it, and then to buy the rights to the PC version, first with Pajitnov, then with the IEC, but even before the deal was finalized, the rights were sold to Spectrum Holobyte. After failing to secure a deal in Moscow, Andromeda tried to buy the rights from Hungarian programmers.
In 1986, Spectrum Holobyte released a US version for the IBM PC. The popularity of the game was huge, it immediately became a bestseller.
Further details are unclear, but in 1987 Andromeda claimed the rights to the game for PC and any other home computer. In 1988, the Soviet government, represented by the state organization ElektronOrgTekhnika (ELORG), claimed its rights to Tetris. By this time, neither the IEC (and Pajitnov, as its employee), nor ELORG had received any cash transfers from Andromeda, but Andromeda claimed its rights to Tetris and, in the meantime, sold licenses to other companies.
Eventually, by early 1989, up to half a dozen different companies had claimed the rights to versions of Tetris for various computers, game consoles, and handheld game systems. ELORG stated that these companies do not have any rights to the versions for slot machines and granted these rights to Atari Games. The rights to the versions for game consoles (video consoles) and portable gaming systems, in a sharp and dramatic competition with Atari (in which the highest officials of the Soviet state could be involved) are Nintendo. The deal with Nintendo was $450,000, plus 50 cents on each cartridge sold.
However, Tengen (the game console software division of Atari Games) released their version of the game for the Nintendo NES console, ignoring the agreement, and many players considered Tengen's version better version Nintendo. The game was called TEТЯIS. But Nintendo sued Tengen and won. Just a few months after the release of TETЯIS, the game had to be recalled after selling about 50,000 copies.
The author of the hit puzzle has an excellent reputation. He organized Anima Tek, which was soon invited to cooperate with Microsoft itself. In 1991, Pajitnov moved to the United States and finally created the Tetris company, after which part of the proceeds from the release of the game flowed into the pocket of its author.
The most legendary Russian game programmer is, of course, Alexey Pajitnov, the author of Tetris. The legend says that an ordinary Russian programmer created an ingenious game that went around the world, multiplying millions of copies, but did not bring a penny to its creator. You can't say it's not true. Indeed, Tetris won unheard of popularity, and Pajitnov did not receive the full income due to him. However, the history of the spread of Tetris is full of nuances that few people know about ...
Aleksey Pajitnov, an employee of the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, peed on simple toys from time to time. As often happens, "Tetris" was not born from a good life - it occurred to Alexei to program the classic "Pentamino" puzzle so that the pieces fall, turning around the center of gravity. However, the power of "Electronics-60" was not enough for such calculations, and it was decided to simplify the task - by truncating the fifth element of the pentomino. This is how Tetris was born - a program written in two weeks in the popular Russian programming language Pascal.
Sixteen-year-old schoolboy Vadim Gerasimov ported the toy to the IBM PC, after which the whole capital, and then the country, learned about Tetris. A year later, Tetris, thanks to the brothers in the socialist camp from Budapest, appears on the Apple II and Commodore 64 platforms. Around the same time, the program gets to the British businessman Robert Stein, a Hungarian by nationality, who from time to time stopped by his historical homeland to watch , didn't the Hungarian coders create something great. Stein is delighted with the toy and, without thinking twice, sells part of the rights to Tetris to Mirrorsoft, owned by British media mogul Robert Maxwell. How exactly this happened is not entirely clear 1. But the fact that Stein came to negotiate the purchase of rights from real copyright holders a few months after the deal was concluded is a historical fact.
The Russians, as expected, "do not give up", refusing to sell Stein the rights to Tetris on his terms. Meanwhile, Maxwell's two companies - the British Mirrorsoft and the American Spectrum Holobyte - are releasing their version of Tetris, loaded to capacity with Soviet flavor.
It is quite possible that no one would have known about Pajitnov if it were not for the cunning of CBS journalists who introduced the real author to the whole world. popular game. After showing an interview with Pajitnov, Stein's position was shaken - it is clear that he did not advertise his trips to Moscow and unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with Soviet organizations. As he did not advertise, to put it mildly, the dubious origin of his rights to this game.
While the court is doing business, Microsoft is selling a license to create console versions of Tetris to Bullet-Proof Software, which is collaborating with Nintendo. In a short time, Bullet-Proof Software manages to sell about two million Famicom cartridges. In Russia, of course, this is not particularly monitored - who cares about Japanese game consoles. Meanwhile, the situation is heating up. Nintendo is about to release GameBoy cartridges, but it's not entirely clear whether Bullet-Proof Software has the right to make versions of Tetris for handheld gaming devices. Stein, who seems to be completely confused about what rights he owns and which does not, Bullet-Proof Software refuses without comment. The head of Bullet-Proof Software, Henk Rogers, shows up in Moscow to find out what's going on and, it turns out, brief Elektronorgtekhnika officials about his company's progress. The demonstration of a cartridge for the Famicom produces the effect of an exploding bomb - no one has the rights to publish the console versions of Tetris and cannot have it.
At this point, Stein already has the rights to the PC versions (obtained from the Soviet side), and he is also trying to buy the rights to the equally fertile market for video game consoles and arcade machines. The son of Robert Maxwell, Kevin, is also in Moscow, for whom the complicated story also turned out to be news. The result of almost a detective intrigue is a multi-million dollar contract with Nintendo signed by Electronorgtekhnika. Stein and Maxwell are forced to make do with crumbs from the table. However, crumbs, presumably, have accumulated quite enough: according to the most conservative estimates, more than 30 million Game Boys have been sold worldwide, and the number of Tetris sold - including PC versions and specialized handheld gaming devices - is probably in the hundreds of millions.
Alexey Pajitnov, as mentioned above, did not receive any interest from the sale of Tetris. However, he did not remain completely unrewarded. The state, according to rumors, gave him the 286th computer and provided him with an apartment. In 1988, with the support of Rogers, he organized AnimaTek, and in 1991 he moved to the United States with her. Despite the relative obscurity of this company, many players have come across the results of its work: AnimaTek developments have been applied, for example, in the well-known Age strategies of Empires by Microsoft. Rogers, meanwhile, switched almost completely to generating income from Tetris, organizing first the Blue Planet Software company, and then the Tetris company.
In 1996, Alexey moved to Microsoft, where under his leadership the Pandora's Box puzzle set was released, which received several prestigious awards. Pajitnov has not been directly involved in programming for a long time.
BIOGRAPHY:
Graduated from Moscow mathematical school No. 91 and the Moscow Aviation Institute.
He worked at the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences, dealing with the problems of artificial intelligence and speech recognition. In the same place, in 1984, he developed famous game"Tetris".
In 1988, with the support of Bullet-Proof Software, he founded AnimaTek (the development of gaming software), and in 1991 he moved to the United States with it.
In October 1996, he moved to Microsoft, where he developed Pandora's Box puzzles. Left Microsoft in 2005.
On August 18, 2005, WildSnake Software announced that Alexey Pajitnov was joining the company and starting to develop new series games.
Alexey Pajitnov, the author of Tetris, has not received a penny for a brilliant game for ten years. Money flowed into the state budget and into the accounts of American companies. Why did the development turn out to be unprofitable for the creator?
Pajitnov could do nothing to change the situation. However, the scientist continued to fight. The confrontation ended in 1996, when Alexei took over as co-founder of Tetris.
How did the scientist's life change after the creation of the famous game, and why didn't he make money on the popular invention? Faktrum imbued with serious problems of a frivolous puzzle.
Russian"Tetris" - a happy accident
Alexey Pajitnov did not develop the game purposefully. An ordinary engineer of the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences was checking the power of a new Soviet computer - Elektronik 60. The tests were carried out using the program. During the test, text characters popped up on the display, which quickly filled the free space. "Spent" lines Pajitnov deleted. Then he came up with the idea of a brilliant puzzle.
Aleksey was inspired by the Pentomino Puzzle game for four-block figures. True, the elements in the puzzle consisted of five cubes. And this was a significant drawback of the game: the computers of that time could not cope with the processing of information. The Soviet engineer dealt with the problem masterfully.
He reduced the number of blocks to four. Also, unlike the Pentomino Puzzle, the pieces only fell down. From that moment on, the puzzle began to spread like a virus. The first players were Pajitnov's colleagues. A couple of weeks later, the puzzle left the walls of the Academy of Sciences. About "Tetris" started talking in the USSR.
A few months later, Comrade Pajitnova transferred the puzzle to the IBM PC (American personal computers). The game became interested in the United States, it became clear that the puzzle was a source of huge profits. However, Aleksey Pajitnov saw a profit only ten years later. The Soviet Union did not immediately realize the uniqueness of the game, the American companies almost appropriated the puzzle.
The history of "Tetris": the struggle for rights
In the USSR, they woke up only after the number of players exceeded one million. Microsoft Corporation and Spectrum Holobyte made good money on someone else's idea by releasing own versions"Tetris" to the world market. The absence of a patent and license made appropriation of the idea legal.
The Academy of Sciences drew attention to the puzzle in time. However, the financial situation of Alexei Pajitnov has not changed. The direct buyer - Robert Stein, the owner of the Andromeda company - directly interacted with the Elektronorgtekhnika company. The real inventor of Tetris did not seem to exist. The patent, which was finally issued in the USSR, also belonged to the state.
The first profit of the game creator
Pajitnov officially worked for the Academy of Sciences, which meant that all developments belonged to the state. For the appropriation of the results of intellectual work, the engineer received a job and a salary. By the way, in one of the interviews, Pajitnov admitted that the conditions at the Academy were specific. In offices designed for five people, sometimes 18 engineers worked.
The creator of Tetris received the first profit from his idea in 1996. After emigrating to the United States in 1991, Pajitnov set about obtaining a license for the game and creating the Tetris company. Now the income partially fell on the account of the real developer of the puzzle. In 1996, Pajitnov began his career at Microsoft and in the first year created a set of logic games called Pandora's Box. Puzzles brought the developer a good profit.
