Tetris

Tetris
Developer	AcademySoft
Publisher	Elorg, Spectrum Holobyte
Platforms	Elektronika 60, DOS
Released	Elektronika 60 USSR: June 6, 1984 DOS USSR: 1986 Canada, US (Tetris Gold): 1992
Added to Museum	DOS: April 5, 2020

Tetris is an influencial puzzle video game.

Development

Tetris was first developed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on June 6, 1984, while employed as a computer engineer at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

The original prototype of Tetris was created on an Elektronika 60, a computer that lacked graphic capabilities and was only capable of displaying text.

Later that year, it was converted to DOS by Vadim Gerasimov, who was a high school student at the time. It was expanded by Gerasimov, Pajitnov, and Dmitry Pavlovsky, a computer engineer, from 1984 to 1986.

Spectrum Holobyte and Mirrorsoft releases

As the game was made in the USSR, a communist country that was largely closed to outsiders, it was irregular for a product to have a worldwide commercial release.

However, a British man named Robert Stein sought the rights to Tetris. He first made telephone calls with Pajitnov and was later told to deal with AcademySoft, the internal licensing and publishing division of the Soviet Academy. When he was told that they were interested, he took this as a verbal agreement. Stein made a deal with the British publisher Mirrorsoft to sell Tetris for computers in Europe and with the American publisher Spectrum HoloByte to sell Tetris for computers in North America.

Before Tetris was commercially released Stein was contacted by the Soviet organization known as Elektronorgtechnica, or Elorg, which informed him that he did not have a contract to publish Tetris and that all further negotiations would have to go through them.

Stein flew to the Soviet Union to meet with Elorg directly, however, before any contract was signed, the computer versions of Tetris were released, in January 1988, and became huge successes. Stein eventually signed a deal with Elorg on May 10, 1988, which granted a ten-year license to release Tetris on home computers as well as the vaguely worded "different types of computers".

Atari Games, Bullet-Proof Software, Sega, and Tandy releases

In 1988, Spectrum Holobyte sold its Tetris rights for release in Japan to a Dutchman named Henk Rogers through his company, Bullet-Proof Software. Mirrorsoft sold its Tetris rights for release in North America to Atari Games. Atari Games then sold its arcade rights to Sega and its video game console rights to Henk Rogers.

Robert Stein retained the rights to the home computer versions, and further licensed Tandy to release a version of Tetris in North America.

The computer and console versions by Bullet-Proof Software were released in 1988. In the same year, the Sega version was released in arcades.

The Atari Games version of Tetris was released in arcades in 1988 and on the Nintendo Entertainment System through its Tengen subsidiary in May 1989.

Also in 1989, the Tandy version of Tetris, developed by ZCT Systems, was released for the TRS-80 Color Computer.

Nintendo release

Nintendo was preparing the launch of the Game Boy. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi was an acquaintance of Henk Rogers, so the latter sought to acquire the handheld rights to Tetris. He tried to negotiate with Atari Games and Robert Stein. However, after being told by Stein that he'd have to consult Elorg first, and trying and failing to negotiate with Stein several times, Henk Rogers traveled to the Soviet Union to negotiate directly with Elorg.

At the meeting, Elorg director Nikolai Belikov was surprised upon seeing a Bullet-Proof Software cartridge of Tetris for the Famicom, as he had thought that only the rights to home computer versions had been signed. Belikov originally claimed Bullet-Proof Software had released the game without a contract, but Henk Rogers explained that he had acquired the rights from Atari Games, who had acquired the rights from Robert Stein.

After learning of the complex licensing agreements, Belikov sought to regain the rights and obtain more financially lucrative contracts. During this period, Rogers befriended Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, and Pajitnov supported Rogers during the contract negotiations. Belikov proposed that Stein's console and handheld licenses would be canceled and Nintendo would be granted the rights to Tetris for both consoles and handheld systems. Rogers flew to the United States so that he could get Nintendo of America to sign the contracts. Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa and its lawyer Howard Lincoln signed the contracts, as did Belikov, Rogers, and Stein. The latter hadn't read the contract fully and hadn't noticed the section that defined a computer as a machine with a monitor and a keyboard.

Nintendo's Nintendo Entertainment System version was released in November 1989.

Console rights dispute

Tengen, the console division of Atari Games, published a console port of the arcade version of Tetris for the Nintendo Entertainment System in May 1989. The Tengen version of Tetris was released for the system on a cartridge that was not licensed by Nintendo

As the Nintendo and Tengen versions were released on the same system, this led to a complicated rights dispute. Approximately six companies had a claim on the rights of Tetris. Elorg, the division under the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR that held the Tetris rights, assigned the rights to publish the arcade version to Atari Games. The rights to publish the console version outside of Japan were assigned to Nintendo.

Atari Games argued that the Nintendo Entertainment System was a computer rather than a console due to the fact that it was called the Family Computer in Japan. Eventually, ELORG concluded that the Family Computer was a console and assigned the exclusive rights to publish console versions of Tetris to Nintendo.

As a result, publication of the Tengen version of Tetris had to cease and existing copies of the game had to be recalled.

Nintendo's victory also allowed for the uncontested publication of the Game Boy version. This version was packed-in with the North American and European releases of the console, which helped sell the system. In turn, the Game Boy helped increase the popularity of Tetris worldwide.