Week 1 - The History of Games before 2000

How Tetris was a Success

In an industry that was not created until the complications of war arose and the advancement of technology was required, Tetris was born in 1984 during the cold war in Soviet Russia. This was created from the depressing times the people in Russia were experiencing and Alexey Pajitnov, whom was a computer programmer at Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, thought of the idea of Tetris and put that idea into action. Tetris is now a world-renowned puzzle game that is addicting and brings fun along with it, but how did this gaming hit, become so big and change the gaming industry forever?

Tetris became a successful game in 1984 and has been world renown ever since and has been able to create a line of games that are still being made now keeping up with technology and the demand of someone always wanting to play Tetris. At the time, Tetris was taking over the world with its simple puzzle mechanics and at the time Pajitnov was "wary of making it too complex" which was a good way to look at it and wouldn't be the franchise it is today, even admitting he "would not change anything" about it in today's world. The simple puzzle formula of Tetris made it great to start out as a beginner and allowed people to get better with the progression of levels making the blocks fall faster and giving people less time to react, making it competitive and the reason Tetris is still around today. 

Tetris also grew in popularity as it was one of the first games to be released on a handheld console being the original Game Boy console released by Nintendo. Tetris had so much success on handheld consoles that the popularity of it has been one of the main reasons that Nintendo has created more handheld devices. The great success of Tetris lead to further iterations of it but it still has the same focus on the simple elements of the game which are the greatest aspect of the game and it the main reason why it was so popular. A producer from the makers of Angry Birds described Tetris as “probably the first break out casual video game” which it was as the simple controls and aim kept it casual and fun.

Finally, Tetris has been a huge success in the gaming industry and due to its simple mechanics, which make it fun and addicting. Also, the timing of the game also helped people take their mind off the problems in the world and continued to help establish one of the long lasting handheld console brands from Nintendo.

Andrew Hudson

References:
Govorun K 2015, 'The history behind the success of Tetris' viewed 20 February 2017,<http://in.rbth.com/economics/2015/07/20/the_history_behind_the_success_of_tetris_44305>.