Tetris - From Russia with Love 6/6

[nekosama23]

Wow... I never knew that a simple game like tetris had such a complicated history.... Totally an eye opener :)

[kozmon0t]

Turns out the Russians did send nuclear missiles, but they were shaped like L's, I's, S's, squares and half-+'s. Anti-missile defenses vaporized whole rows of them but they stacked up to the top and the war was over.

[KimCheeWarrior]

when i first saw how long this documentary was going to be, i thought to myself, "how are they going to stretch this miniscule story over a period of an hour or more?". then i watched the whole thing and never even realized just how complex the life story of tetris was. it was amazing how they got almost every person that was involved with all this to sit down and do interviews with bbc. it was like stepping into a time machine, i felt like i was really there.

[KimCheeWarrior]

alexey seemed like a really friendly and easy going guy, despite all the conspiracy that shrouded the game he created. truly a man among men.

[KimCheeWarrior]

you know, i really feel for alexey because it took so long for him to finally make money off of this. this whole conspiracy over who had the rights kinda makes me feel disgusted because everyone was so worried about who was going to get the rights and meanwhile alexey was being neglected. its not really anyone's fault but the soviet union's but one thing's for sure, this documentary really portrayed just how cold hearted people can be in the world of business.

[KimCheeWarrior]

ive known about bits of pieces of this story when i was a kid in the 80's but this documentary really blew the lid off the whole story and presented it very professionally, i was really impressed. im used to seeing stories about videogames produced from half baked game sites and unprofessional producers. witnessing an entity like bbc taking the helm of such a compelling story like this and properly telling the story complete with interviews from all proper people who were involved was a joy.

[diby1]

1:05 He's designing Hexic :o

[richardhaw]

fuck capitalism

[ZiKoN22]

wow.....it really sucked to live in Russia then, Alexey on got a fraction of he could have gotten if he lived in another country. and he only got the money like 3-4 years (i think) after the deal happened and the rights expired. i feel sad for Alexey because he made an amazing game yet only got a fraction of the money of what he could have gotten.

[KimCheeWarrior]

@ZiKoN22 what's really amazing is how humble alexey is about it all. he lost out on so much profit and yet never really touted himself as a genius because of creating this amazing thing called tetris. im sure deep down inside there might be a little regret about how the way things transpired but if he is upset about it, he doesnt show it. such an amazing man he is.

[afaultytoaster]

@KimCheeWarrior perhaps people can do good things without the allure of profits

[hellstudios]

you sir deserve a youtube partnership

[wabenhart]

So how did the tengen NES version get sold to the public if NOA handed them the "no sale" contracts as soon as they got the home console rights? Did Tengen/Atari actually start selling the game before this. Documentary made it sound like they had not released it yet...

[AshForte]

Every character in this story EXCEPT for Alexey is greedy. They were only in it for the rights, and ultimately, the money. Sure, the worst was Maxwell and Stein, who could care less who they trample on (even if it means getting someone fired for not doing what they say), but Henk wasn't totally right either. He tried to slip the rights right from under everyone's noses, and succeeded. All in all, it was a bunch of pigs fighting over something none of them truly owned.

Great documentary.

[wratched]

@AshForte I disagree. Henk was an entrepreneur and did what entrepreneurs do; he saw an opportunity and took it. He was never less than honest with the Russians and indeed had little idea of what was going on. To criticise Henk for being an entrepreneur is to criticise capitalism, and as I dislike communism, I refuse to do that. The only underhandedness in this affair was that of Belikov and Stein; but I can forgive Belikov since all he did was bamboozle someone who had already cheated him.

[the0th]

@AshForte

belikov was Ok as well. him and alexei were good people. the rest were greedy capitalist pigs.

[felsner1]

Interesting documentary... I had NO idea of this complex history.

[wratched]

I think the moral of this story is that people are the same no matter what system they're under. Patchitnov and Rogers hit it off because they were the same: creative people fascinated by possibilities. Maxwell, the worst kind of capitalist pig, attracted the Kremlin because they were as venal and self-interested as he was. Belikov may have been a Communist authority figure, but he turned out to be more honest and moral than the greedy (and stupid) Stein.

[BringBackMy90s]

a beatifully sad but also fascinating story

[towatchutube123]

By far the best documentarie about a game. I love tetris so much, thanks again for posting this. To bad he never got all the money that he deserved!!

[alvieao2]

Great documentary... Thank you so much for posting it.

[Redwark]

Thank you very much for posting this documentary, it was really interesting !

[GameDocumentaries]

you're welcome :) glad that you liked it

[d00de]

thanks man! very interesting documentary.

[Heroasango]

Awesome docu. I enjoyed it a lot.

Thanks for posting.

All the best to you and please keep up the good work!

[pentonvilleroad]

great documentary. but no mention about sega vs nintendo?

[Xiaopang3333]

what would that have to do with tetris?

[pentonvilleroad]

quite a bit.

[GameDocumentaries]

mind explaining that? i'm aware that sega released its own tetris clown "columns", but did they actively battle nintendo for the tetris license?

[pentonvilleroad]

ok. sega releases a great version of tetris on arcade and wants to release it on the megadrive. but nintendo knows it needs tetris in order to sell their upcoming new console gameboy. problem was that sega bought their lisence from tengen which had bought rights from atari...mirrosoft....andromeda soft...and finally ELORG. BUT the problem with the contract was that andromeda software had only the rights to sell tetris on IBM computers, so nintendo notices this and decides to buy the rights

[pentonvilleroad]

directly from ELORG for ALL CONSOLES. The problem is that nintendo knew all along that sega would have to scrap every copy of the megadrive and gamegear tetris that they had already made ready to be sold.... I guess things are cool among the companies now but 20 years ago, this caused huge tensions between the two companies and their loyal fans. hope i got this correct. sorry, i can't be bothered to double check. peace

[JamesBondEsq]

Thank you for posting, much appreciated.