Day 60: Tetris; From Russia With Love

Today I randomly found a documentary about the creation of Tetris. I knew nothing about its history, so I learned a lot.

What I learned: The game was invented in Russia by bored computer programmers. I guess computer programming is basically like slave labor is Communist Russia- you just had to work on whatever the government wanted you to work on forever and ever till they told you to work on something else. So one day a computer programmer decided he would invent a computer game to keep himself entertained when not inundated with work. He took an old card/puzzle game and built it for the computer. And thus Tetris was born.

The rest of the film is about distributing the game, and how numerous individuals and companies have owned the rights to it over the years, sometimes without realizing they were infringing on already established copyright laws.

What I liked: I was interested in the commentary on Russian/communist life and how they regarded concepts like intellectual property. I also really loved how obsessed everyone who tried the game became- the guy who invented it couldn't stop playing and was missing meals and family time to sneak downstairs and play it. Eventually his family found out about it, and they instantly got hooked on the game as well.

What I didn't like: All the woo-ha about legal troubles. I couldn't care less who owned the game or who was making profits off it. Really slowed the whole thing down.

Overall an educational and semi-entertaining film. Not as fun as just playing Tetris, but still alright.

Here is the film.

And here's an Wiki article about the Tetris Effect: 
           "The Tetris effect (also known as Tetris Syndrome) occurs when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it begins to overshadow theirthoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris.

People who play Tetris for a prolonged amount of time may then find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.^[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit. They might also dream about falling Tetrisshapes when drifting off to sleep or see images of falling Tetris shapes at the edges of their visual fields or when they close their eyes.^[1] In this sense, the Tetriseffect is a form of hallucination or hypnagogic imagery."

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