In Soviet Russia, the blocks rotate YOU

BBC Four
had “Computer Night” tonight, which consisted of a half-hour overview
of the evolution of the PC (very UK 8-bit focused, which was cool for a
nostalgia freak like myself, but it was all a bit speedy) and another
half hour of Stephen Poole looking smug in between various people who should have known better, of which more later. These two were preceded by TETRIS: From Russia With Love,
an hour-long documentary following the story of the game’s origins in
the Moscow Academy of Sciences and the various shenanigans along the
way to becoming one of the most popular games ever.

As the director explains,
the programme focuses on the people who brought the game to the outside
world and the lengthy rights battles that involved. There was much
dramatisation of the differences between Cold War Russia and the
Western games industry (initially overplayed, but ultimately justified)
and the key personalities were well represented – especially Evgeni
Belikov, who starts off as a potential villain but ends up as one of
the heroes of the piece. And in the middle of it all, charming,
innocent and happy despite the almost total lack of royalties, is Pajitnov.

Despite the genuinely fascinating drama around the sales rights, I
couldn’t help but be frustrated at the obvious pieces missing from the
programme. Nothing at all was made of the huge impact that
Tetris has had on games. Similarly, when starting the tale about
Nintendo’s quest to license it as the Gameboy’s bundled game, the
momentousness of the nomination itself is completely ignored. (Though
it’s later explained that, through Gameboy sales alone, over 70 million
Tetris carts were produced.)

Still, it’s well worth catching on the repeats
(tonight at 11:30, and at various other times this week) or via
BitTorrent when it eventually shows up. For a potted history of the
saga, see this page from the old AtariHQ.com site.