History of Tetris - Best Selling Video Game Of All Time

Most younger generations today probably might not have heard about this video game, Tetris. But if it were the OGs, then you would know that this is the best-selling video game of all time. Despite it not being as futuristic as today's gaming world, it was trendy back in the day when people got really addicted to it.

Just saying the word Tetris will give goosebumps to most gamers. If you were to try it out today, then you can simply download it on Google Play or Apple Store and play it for free. But if you were to play it on consoles then it is going to cost you just a couple of bucks.

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Tetris is a very simple game that will stimulate your brain to think fast too. In fact, psychologists from Plymouth University also found a discovery that playing Tetris for as long as 3 minutes can help reduce your desire for food.

This is definitely beneficial to those trying to distract themselves from eating food and struggling with losing weight. This tool can help you go through that process as well as stops a person from smoking and drinking alcohol.

Tetris still remains unchallenged and remains at the top of the best-selling video games of all time with more than 500 million units sold worldwide. The video game was named as such as it combines two words, tetromino, and tennis.

There is not a single video game around the world which are copied many times more than Tetris. This video game can be played on almost all video game consoles and computers. That is not all, the game can also be incorporated into graphic calculators, telephones, music devices, personal digital assistants (PDA), and even an oscilloscope.

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Tetris was originally designed and programmed by a Russian video game designer, Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. At the time, he was working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center of the Soviet Union Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Elektonika 60 computer

The video game was developed using an Electronika 60 computer which was the first time that a piece of a Tetris puzzle was issued without any color or sound. Tetris was made based on a computer game, Pentominoes that was already popular among Russian kids.

Pentominoes video game

However, it was modified since Pentominoes involve 12 puzzle characters that may seem too complicated. Instead, he only took 7 puzzle characters that were known as tetrominoes.

And since the Electronik 60 computer only has a text display, tetrominoes only took the shape of the alphabets which are I, J, L, O, S, T, and Z. Not long after Tetris was made, a video game with the size 27 KB was adapted by Alexey's partner, Vadim Gerasimov(now works for Google) into the IBM PC platform.

In 1985, Vadim expanded Tetris into the first colored version in the world. And here was the point of history for Tetris' success. The PC version of Tetris blew up and spread all over Moscow.

To increase the popularity of Tetris, a partnership was established between Vadim and a renowned British media company, Maxwell Corporation, and Mirror Soft in 1986. In 1989, Tetris' commercial success happened as the first monochrome Game Boy was released.

The giant gaming company of Japan, Nintendo has given their utmost gratitude to making Tetris the first video game that will be available for the Game Boy. Perhaps without the presence of Game Boy, Tetris will not reach its pinnacle of success as we see it now.

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The success of Tetris remains unchallenged even to this day as the creation of Alexey Pajitnow managed to overcome most video games that were developed using the sophisticated technology of today.

This huge popularity led Microsoft to include Tetris in the Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack for Windows 3.0 in 1989. This acknowledges Tetris as the most successful video game in history.

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