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    Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World: Based on the Book by Dan Ackerman
    Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World: Based on the Book by Dan Ackerman
    Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World: Based on the Book by Dan Ackerman
    Ebook61 pages1 hour

    Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World: Based on the Book by Dan Ackerman

    By Worth Books

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    About this ebook

    So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Tetris Effect tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Dan Ackerman’s book.
     
    Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
     
    This short summary and analysis of The Tetris Effect includes:
    • Historical context
    • Chapter-by-chapter summaries
    • Profiles of the main characters
    • Detailed timeline of key events
    • Important quotes
    • Fascinating trivia
    • Glossary of terms
    • Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work
    About The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World by Dan Ackerman:
     
    In his book The Tetris Effect, Dan Ackerman provides an informative, intriguing account of the history of one of the world’s most popular video games.
     
    The surprising story begins in Soviet Russia, where computer researcher Alexey Pajitnov programmed the first version of Tetris using outdated software—before it spread westward and went viral. As the addictive game grew in popularity around the world, so did the fight for its ownership.
     
    Learn about the early days of Cold War–era computer programming, the people and companies who sought control of the intellectual property, and how playing Tetris physically impacts our brains.
     
    The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateApr 25, 2017
    ISBN9781504008716
    Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World: Based on the Book by Dan Ackerman
    Author

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    Worth Books’ smart summaries get straight to the point and provide essential tools to help you be an informed reader in a busy world, whether you’re browsing for new discoveries, managing your to-read list for work or school, or simply deepening your knowledge. Available for fiction and nonfiction titles, these are the book summaries that are worth your time.  

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      Book preview

      Summary and Analysis of The Tetris Effect - Worth Books

      Context

      Tetris might be a timeless video game, but it certainly isn’t new: the first version was programmed more than thirty years ago. Since then, hundreds of millions of people have probably played Tetris at least once, and many more have fallen prey to its addictive qualities. What players might be unfamiliar with are the unlikely circumstances in which Tetris was developed and shared, and the intense legal battle that ensued over the rights to the popular game—across devices and global territories.

      The surprising story begins in Soviet Russia, where computer researcher Alexey Pajitnov programmed the first version of Tetris on his clunky Electronica 60 PC. The United States today finds itself obliquely threatened by Russian espionage, but, in 1984, the Soviet republics were truly closed off from the Western world, without even the most primitive Internet access.

      Against the odds, Tetris escaped to Hungary, where a sketchy software licenser picked it up and started selling rights to the game long before he got any approval from Electronorgtechnica (ELORG), the USSR’s official technology distributor. With new digital startups turning into global enterprises faster than ever, the history of the game stands as a cautionary tale that encompasses creativity and innovation, culture and politics, business strategy and negotiation, as well as end users and emerging research into neuroplasticity.

      Technology journalist Dan Ackerman provides an informative, intriguing account of the history of one of the world’s most popular video games in his book The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World.

      Overview

      If you’ve ever touched a computer, you’re probably familiar with Tetris. But have you ever considered the origins of the deceptively simple puzzle game?

      The game’s story begins in the USSR, when Alexey Pajitnov took a job at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ computer center. The technology he had looked forward to using wasn’t even at his fingertips in 1980, when the center was still using a wall-sized mainframe computer from the 1960s, but within a few years he had his own Electronica 60 PC. Pajitnov began working after-hours on his own experiments in programming, trying to create a computer version of one of his favorite puzzle games, pentominoes—a popular game in Russia where players solved puzzles with geometric shapes made up of five connected squares.

      Through trial-and-error, he arrived at the first version of Tetris. Teenaged computer wizard Vadim Gerasimov translated the game’s code to an IBM-compatible version, and it was off: Floppy disks that contained the game’s code began circulating among Russians with computer access, and citizens became addicted.

      Stuck behind the Iron Curtain, it was unclear at first whether Tetris would have a global audience, or even get any attention at all outside the USSR. It was a stroke of good luck that Pajitnov’s boss sent the game to Hungary, where software licenser Robert Stein often sought out cheap foreign talent to bring back to the United Kingdom. Stein sold the first Tetris rights to Mirrorsoft and Spectrum Holobyte right away—too quickly, as it turned out, seeing as it would take him more than a year to have a signed contract with Russia’s technology distribution office, ELORG.

      Tetris was a fast international hit, and as its popularity exploded, the various licensing deals Stein was selling spun out of his control.

      Summary

      Part I

      1. The Great Race

      Five years after Tetris was first programmed by a computer scientist in the Soviet Union, it escaped the confines of the Iron

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