Tetris turns 25 (and falls to pieces)

Believe it or not, it’s been 25 years since Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris on the Elektronika 60 computer, while working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre (part of Moscow’s Academy of Science institute). Here’s an impressive look at Tetris “by the numbers.”

Believe it or not, it's been 25 years since Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov created Tetris on the Elektronika 60 computer, while working at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre (part of Moscow's Academy of Science institute). Here's an impressive look at Tetris "by the numbers."

Little did Pajitnov know at the time this simple, yet insanely addictive puzzler would become an international sensation and appear — in some way, shape or form — on virtually every video game system over the next quarter century.

And so to celebrate this Tetris milestone, we thought it would be fun to look at the game's accomplishments by the numbers, with some help from Connecting Point Communications, the San Francisco-based PR firm representing Tetris in North America today.

 Here we go:

* 2, in weeks, how long it took Pajitnov took to create the original game

* 7, the official number of one-sided pieces ("Tetrominoes") in Tetris: I, J, L, O, S, T, and Z, named for their resemblance to letters in the English alphabet

* 50, the number of languages Tetris has been translated to

* 30, the number of platforms Tetris has been available on, to date

* 35, the number of units, in millions, Tetris has sold for the original Nintendo Game Boy

* 125, in millions, how many Tetris products have sold in total, to date

* 75, In millions, how many Tetris games have sold on mobile devices

* 1, how many times, in millions, Tetris is played — per day — via Tetris Friends Online Games, the official online game destination for North America and Europe

* 2,  Tetris's rank, in a list of the Top 50 Console Games of All Time, according to the Guinness World Records 2009 Gamer’s Edition. (Number one is Mario Kart)

* 2006, the year Honda created a commercial for the Honda Jazz in Europe, where pieces of furniture and luggage were organized to fit like "Tetrominoes" into the trunk of the vehicle

Filed Under: Games