Documentary about the guy that made Tetris

[kj]

on BBC 3 the other night. It was fantastic. I didnt think there was so much behind the game... apparently Robert Maxwell, Michael Gorbachev (spelling), Nintendo, Atari and a whole load of lawyers were fighting for the rights to distribute it in the West. In those days communist Russia owned everything you created. Tetris was owned by them. The dude that created it made nothing, until recently when the patent ran out.

But anyway, he's now working for microsoft... which is kinda ironic cos his game was a massive success on Nintendo's Game Boy console.

Atari apparently thought at one point that they had secured rights to distribute Tetris. They made 300,000 cartridges for distro, until they found out that they didnt really have the rights and were therefore selling the game illegally, so in the end they ended up with thousands of useless carts. They almost went bankrupt.

Nintendo secured the rights.

But even before all this, apparently Robert Maxwell went mental at his son for not securing the rights for Atari to do the game, then killed himself a few years later. He threated to get the russian president involved in order to stop the game leaving Russia if he coudnt get the rights for himself, and this in turn made the lawyer who represented the creator of the game recieving death threats, he later moved to America with one of the guys from Nintendo.

It was on for about 2 hours or something, amazing programme. The guy is now making royalties from the game, but not as much as he should have got in the first place, but he wasnt bitter about it.

Hope all that made sense.

[AlanG]

oooh never knew that would be on would have tried to catch it.

those carts that were made but couldnt be sold were put into a landfill site in texas, how cool is that? hehe

[kj]

it was a good show. They pretty much interviewed the majority of those involved, except of course Gorbachev and Maxwell. But the guys from Nintendo and Atari kept taking pot shots at each other, as did their lawyers. But it was good to see Atari own up to their mistakes and Nintendo to show some respect toward Atari.

The show also mentioned a technology / software authority in Russia that tried to regulate all software produced in order to make money for itself. They tried to stop the publishing and distro deal between the makers of Tetris and Nintendo but failed at the last minute due to some quick thinking on Nintendo's part. They basically flew over their president to sign the deal in Russia, and that was pretty much it.

[kj]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3479989.stm

its getting replayed this sunday, so make sure you catch it Alan.

[Mike - Indi Rev]

its on right now.

7 till 8 on bbc3 i think

[Degze]

Originally Posted by kj

Atari apparently thought at one point that they had secured rights to distribute Tetris. They made 300,000 cartridges for distro, until they found out that they didnt really have the rights and were therefore selling the game illegally, so in the end they ended up with thousands of useless carts. They almost went bankrupt.

.

thats not the only time atari made a fuck up! they made the game "ET" wich was written in 2 weeks or somthing for the atari 2600 wich has been voted the worst ever game. they also stupidly made more copys of this game than they had made console-idoits!!!!! They say theirs like 2 million copys of et buried underground in the nirvada desert!

[AlanG]

Home Alone is clearly the worst game ever made.