Atari Games

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

In 1987, Andromeda Software executive Robert Stein approached Soviet Academy of Sciences researcher Alexey Pajitnov—who invented the original game in 1984-1985 alongside Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov—with an offer to distribute *Tetris* worldwide, and secured the rights to license the game. He sub-licensed the rights to Mirrorsoft for the European market and Spectrum HoloByte for the North American market. After seeing the game run on an Atari ST, programmer Ed Logg petitioned Atari Games to license it for an arcade version, and approached Stein. With the rights secured, Atari Games produced an arcade version, and under its Tengen subsidiary began to remake it for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in June 1988. It was released in May 1989. Mirrorsoft later sub-licensed the rights to Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software to distribute *Tetris* in Japan. Bullet-Proof Software gave Nintendo a proposal of developing *Tetris* for the Game Boy, and Rogers traveled to Moscow to secure permission. However, because Stein had secured the rights from Pajitnov directly and not from the Soviet authorities, the Ministry of Software and Hardware Export stated that the console rights to *Tetris* remained unlicensed, and that Atari Games had only an arcade license. In April 1989, Tengen, which had previously filed an antitrust suit against Nintendo, sued Nintendo again claiming rights to distribute *Tetris* on the NES, and Nintendo counter-sued citing infringement of trademark. In June 1989, one month after the release of Tengen's *Tetris*, U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith issued an injunction barring Tengen from further distributing the game, and further ordered all existing copies destroyed. As a result, 268,000 *Tetris* cartridges were recalled and destroyed after only four weeks at retail. Ed Logg said that the Tengen version of *Tetris* was built from scratch, using no source code or assets from the original. After presenting the game at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Tengen president Randy Broweleit requested improvements. He wanted the black-and-white pieces to be colorized, and Logg complied prior to the next CES. When asked which version of *Tetris* he liked the most, Logg stated the Nintendo version for the NES "wasn't tuned right" due to a lack of logarithmic speed adjustment, yielding overly steep increases in difficulty.

In Their Own Story

The arcade cabinet stood in a corner of the mall, its blue-and-red color scheme drawing eyes. A player dropped a quarter into the slot, the machine humming to life. The first piece—a straight I-block—fell slowly. He guided it into place, clearing a line. The score ticked upward. Beside him, a second player plugged into the two-player link-up, their screens syncing. They didn't speak, but the competition was immediate: each cleared line sent a garbage row to the opponent's field. The player's fingers moved faster as the speed increased, the logarithmic adjustment making every second count. Outside, the rain began, but here, in the glow of the screen, there was only the next piece and the hope of a perfect clear.

Reader's Guide

Atari Games' arcade version of *Tetris* was released in February 1989. The game features the same gameplay as the computer editions: players must stack differently shaped falling blocks to form and eliminate horizontal lines from the playing field. It has several difficulty levels and two-player simultaneous play. The arcade version was built from scratch by Ed Logg, using no source code or assets from the original. After the first CES presentation, Tengen president Randy Broweleit requested that the black-and-white pieces be colorized, and Logg complied before the next CES. The Tengen NES conversion, released in May 1989, was at retail for only four weeks, with fewer than 100,000 copies sold, until Atari was legally required to recall and destroy any remaining inventory. The Tengen release has since become a collector's item due to its scarcity. Various publications have described Tengen's version as superior in some ways to Nintendo's official NES release, especially for its two-player simultaneous mode. 1UP.com noted its termination as a loss for players, citing its gameplay and two-player mode, but also noted that without the hype surrounding the game during the lawsuit, Tengen's *Tetris* would have likely been forgotten. IGN placed the Tengen version at #48 on its list of the Top 100 NES games, noting its superiority to the official Nintendo version, which is not on the list.

Did You Know?

• The Tengen version of Tetris was built from scratch, using no source code or assets from the original.
• Tengen president Randy Broweleit requested that the black-and-white pieces be colorized after the first CES presentation, and Ed Logg complied before the next CES.
• U.S. District Court Judge Fern Smith issued an injunction barring Tengen from further distributing the game in June 1989, one month after its release.
• 268,000 Tetris cartridges were recalled and destroyed after only four weeks at retail.
• The Tengen cover features an airbrush painting by Marc Ericksen of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow, with a falling stone concept at its base that mirrors the gameplay.