cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/7643915
As always in capitalism, video games have largely deformed from an art form into just another means to generate profit for large corporations
Which was only successful because it got licensed to Western software companies.
Yeah it being an incredibly addictive universally approachable game has nothing to do with it being widely played for over 40 years… 🙄
You know that copyright export was illegal under the Soviets though yeah? So it only got released because a UK software sales guy faxed them a contract and they didn’t realise it was binding
Robert Stein, an international software salesman for the London-based firm Andromeda Software, saw the game’s commercial potential during a visit to Hungary in June 1986.[18]: 302 [25]: 11 min After an indifferent response from the Academy,[25]: 12 min Stein contacted Pajitnov and Brjabrin by fax to obtain the license rights.[25]: 11 min The researchers expressed interest in forming an agreement with Stein via fax, but they were unaware that this fax communication could be considered a legal contract in the Western world;[26] Stein began to approach other companies to produce the game.[17]: 89–90
Stein approached publishers at the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gary Carlston, co-founder of Broderbund, retrieved a copy and brought it to California. Despite enthusiasm amongst its employees, Broderbund remained skeptical because of the game’s Soviet origins. Likewise, Mastertronic co-founder Martin Alper declared that “no Soviet product will ever work in the Western world”.[17]: 90
Stein ultimately signed two agreements: he sold the European rights to the publisher Mirrorsoft,[17]: 90 [27] and the American rights to sister company Spectrum HoloByte.[28] The latter obtained the rights after a visit to Mirrorsoft by Spectrum HoloByte president Phil Adam in which he played Tetris for two hours.[17]: 90 [25]: 15 min At that time, Stein had not yet signed a contract with the Soviet Union.[27] Nevertheless, he sold the rights to the two companies for £3,000 and a royalty of 7.5 to 15% on sales
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris
Would be kind of hard to play a game that didn’t get published by the evil capitalist lol
That’s only because in the West there was no way for the game to reach customers at the time. The game was popular in the “Soviet Block” just fine, because distribution model was different.
Today, it would spread through internet like fire.
