Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov was born in Moscow in 1955 to parents who were both writers. His father was an art critic and his mother was a journalist who wrote for both newspapers and a film magazine. Through his parents, Pajitnov was exposed to the arts, eventually developing a passion for cinema. He accompanied his mother to many film screenings, including the Moscow Film Festival. Pajitnov was also mathematically inclined, enjoying puzzles and problem solving.
Pajitnov’s parents divorced when he was eleven, and he lived with his mother for several years, in a one-bedroom apartment owned by the state. Eventually, the two moved into a private apartment when Pajitnov was seventeen. He went on to study applied mathematics at the Moscow Aviation Institute.
In 1977, Pajitnov worked as a summer intern at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. After he graduated in 1979, he accepted a job at the Academy working on speech recognition at the Academy’s Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre. When the Computing Centre received new equipment, the researchers would write a small program for the equipment to test the equipment’s computing capabilities, which became Pajitnov’s excuse for making games. He found computer games fascinating, because they were a way of bridging the gap between logic and emotion.
Pajitnov recalled his childhood memories of playing pentominoes, a game in which a user created pictures using the shapes of the game pieces. He remembered the difficulty he always experienced trying to put the pieces back together to fit inside the box, and was inspired to create a game based on the concept. Pajitnov felt that the game would be needlessly complicated by the twelve possible variations of pentominoes, so he scaled the concept down to tetrominoes, of which there are seven variants. Using an Elektronika 60 in the Computing Centre, Pajitnov began working on what would become the first version of Tetris, and built the first prototype in two weeks. Because the Elektronika 60 had no graphical interface, the field and pieces were modeled using spaces and brackets. Pajitnov then playtested and added to the game, completing it on June 6, 1985. The first version did not have levels or a scoring system. But Pajitnov knew he had a great game, because he could not stop playing the game while at work.
The name “Tetris” was a combination of “tetra,” meaning four, and Pajitnov’s favorite sport, tennis.
The game attracted the interest of coworkers like programmer Dmitri Pevlovsky, who connected Pajitnov with Vadim Gerasimov, then a 16-year-old intern at the Soviet Academy. Gerasimov created a color version of Tetris for the IBM Personal Computer in less than three weeks, and with contributions form Pevlovsky, spent an additional month adding new features like scorekeeping and sound effects.
Floppy disk copies of the IBM version were distributed freely throughout the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center, before spreading quickly among Moscow computing circles. Pajitnov kept note of second-hand accounts of Tetris’ spread during this time. By 1986, nearly everyone with an IBM computer in Moscow had played Tetris.
Under Soviet law, intellectual rights were not protected, and Tetris was licensed and managed by state-owned Soviet company Elektronorgtechnica (“ELORG”), which had a monopoly on the import and export of computer hardware and software in the Soviet Union. Because Pajitnov was employed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he was ineligible to receive any royalties.
Pajitnov lacked knowledge of business, so he asked his supervisor, Victor Brjabrin, to help him publish Tetris. Pajitnov offered to transfer the rights to the Academy and was delighted to receive a non-compulsory remuneration from Brjabrin. In 1986, Brjabrin sent a copy of Tetris to Hungarian game publisher Novotrade, and copies began circulating via floppy disks throughout Hungary.
Robert Stein, an international software salesman for London-based Andromeda Software, saw the game during a visit to Hungary in June 1986. Stein contacted Pajitnov and Brjabrin by fax to obtain the license rights. Pajitnov and Brjabrin expressed interest in forming an agreement with Stein via fax, but did not know that their communication via fax would be considered a legal contract in the Western world. Stein began to approach other companies to produce the game.
At the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Stein sold the European rights to the publisher Mirrorsoft, owned by Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine and Kevin Maxwell), and the American rights to Mirrorsoft’s sister company, Spectrum Holobyte. Spectrum Holobyte obtained the rights after the company’s president, Phil Adam, visited Mirrorsoft and played the game for two hours. Though Stein had not yet signed a contract with the Soviet Union, he sold the rights to the two companies for 3,000 pounds and royalties of 7.5 – 15% of sales.
Tetris was first commercially released in the West on the IBM PC in January 1988, with other computer systems planned for release in the following weeks. Boosted by word of mouth and positive reviews, Mirrorsoft sold tens of thousands of copies in two months, and Spectrum Holobyte sold over 100,000 units in a year. The average Tetris player was between 25 and 45 years old, and was a manager or engineer. At the Software Publisher Association’s Excellence in Software Awards ceremony in March 1988, Tetris won Best Entertainment Software, Best Original Game, Best Strategy Program, and Best Consumer Software.
Meanwhile, Pajitnov was still not earning any royalties. The only document certifying a licensing fee was the fax from Pajitnov and Brjabrin, meaning that Stein had sold the license for a game he did not yet own. Stein contacted Pajitnov and asked for a contract for the rights. Stein began negotiations by fax, but eventually made several trips to Moscow and held long discussions with Elorg representatives. Stein came to an agreement with ELORG in February 1988, and in May signed a contract for a 10-year worldwide Tetris license for all current and future computer systems. Pajitnov and Brjabrin were unaware the game had been on sale for months and that Stein had claimed to own the rights prior to the agreement. Pajitnov did not receive a percentage of the licensee fee, but said that “the fact that so many people enjoy my game is enough for me.”
Spectrum HoloByte and Mirrorsoft began sublicensing Tetris to other companies, including the Japanese computer rights to Henk Rogers of Bullet-Proof Software. Mirrorsoft sold arcade rights to Atari subsidiary Tengen, which sold console rights to BPS. BPS published a console port for the Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom), which sold two million copies in Japan. Tetris had become commercially successful worldwide, ELORG received no royalties and was unaware of the deals Stein had negotiated.
Rogers was close to the Nintendo President, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and sought the handheld rights for the upcoming Game Boy release. After a failed negotiation with Atari, Rogers contacted Stein in November 1988. Stein agreed to sign a contract, but explained that he had to consult ELORG before returning to negotiate with Rogers. Rogers contacted Stein several times, and grew suspicious that Stein had breached his contract with ELORG.
In February 1989, Rogers traveled to Moscow and arrived at ELORG uninvited. Quickly behind Rogers came Stein and Mirrorsoft manager Kevin Maxwell, separately, and without consulting each other. Negotiations between ELORG and each of Rogers, Stein, and Kevin Maxwell began the following day. Rogers befriended Pajitnov over a game of Go, and Pajitnov then supported Rogers throughout the discussions. After obtaining an agreement with ELORG president, Nikolai Belikov, Rogers showed Belikov a Famicom Tetris cartridge. Belikov was surprised, because he believed that Tetris had only been licensed for computer systems, and accused Rogers of illegal publication. Rogers explained that he had obtained the rights via Atari, who had obtained the rights from Stein.
Belikov was sympathetic to Rogers’ plight and constructed a plan to regain possession of the rights and make a deal with Nintendo. Rogers flew to the United States to convince Nintendo’s American branch to sign with ELORG for the rights to home and handheld consoles. Minoru Arakawa of Nintendo signed the contract with ELORG for $500,000, plus 50 cents per cartridge sold. ELORG then presented Stein with an updated contract, which Stein executed without carefully reading. The updated contract defined a computer as a machine with a screen and a keyboard, eliminating Stein’s console rights.
In March 1989, Nintendo sent a cease and desist to Atari, concerning Atari’s production of Tetris cartridges for the NES, the North American version of the Famicom. In response, Mirrorsoft owner Robert Maxwell pressured Mikhail Gorbachev to cancel the contract between ELORG and Nintendo. Despite the threats to Belikov, ELORG refused to concede, due to the financial advantages of the contract with Nintendo, compared to the contracts signed with Stein and Mirrosoft.
In June 1989, Nintendo filed a preliminary injunction against Atari in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Atari sought to prove that NES was a computer, which would make Atari’s port of the game covered by Stein’s license. Atari argued that the Famicom (Japanese NES) could be converted into a computer with a Family BASIC peripheral. Judge Fern M. Smith rejected Atari’s argument and declared that Mirrorsoft had never received explicit authorization for marketing on consoles. The Court ruled in Nintendo’s favor, granting the injunction. The next day, Atari withdrew its NES version from sale, though preference for the Atari version over Nintendo’s subsequently led to Atari cartridges selling for up to $300 on the secondary market.
Tetris was released with Game Boy on July 31, 1989, and became the Game Boy’s “killer app,” proving the value of the Game Boy itself. Tetris generated $80 million in revenue for Nintendo.
Through the legal history of the license, Pajitnov was regularly invited by journalists and publishers, through which he discovered that Tetris had sold millions of copies. Pajitnov still took pride in the game, which he considered “an electronic ambassador of benevolence.” In January 1990, Pajitnov was invited by Spectrum HoloByte to the Consumer Electronics Show, and was immersed in American life for the first time. He explored American culture in several cities, including Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York City, and Boston, and engaged in interviews with several hosts, including the directors of Nintendo of America. Pajitnov marveled at the freedom and advantages of Western society, and realized there was no market in Russia for his Russian colleagues’ programs.
In 1991, with Rogers’ help, Pajitnov and his family emigrated to Seattle, and he worked as a freelance game designer. Pajitnov worked on several sequels to Tetris.
The Academy of Sciences’ rights to Tetris expired at the end of 1995, reverting back to Pajitnov. Finally, in America, Pajitnov was able to collect royalties from his game. Worried that ELORG, which had become a private company under Belikov after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, would try to reclaim the rights, Pajitnov recruited Rogers to secure them. Rogers formed the Tetris Company as an equal partnership between ELORG and Rogers’ company Blue Plante Software. Rogers later acquired ELORG and renamed the company Tetris Holding in 2005.
Pajitnov was employed by Microsoft from 1996 until 2005, developing games for the company, including Hexic 3D, which was included with Xbox 360 Premium. In August 2005, WildSnake Software announced that Pajitnov would be collaborating with them to release a new line of puzzle games.
Pajitnov has been naturalized as a U.S. citizen, and now lives in Clyde Hill, Washington. He has two sons, Peter and Dmitri, with his wife, Nina.
In 1996, GameSpot named Pajitnov as the fourth most influential computer game developer of all time. In March 2007, Pajitnov received the Game Developers Choice Awards First Penguin Award for pioneering the casual games market.
In June 2009, Pajitnov received the honorary award at the LARA – Der Deutsche Games Award in Cologne Germany.
In a famous incident at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on April 20, 2012, hackers turned MIT’s Green Building into a giant, playable, and multi-color Tetris game.
In 2009, researchers at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico announced results of a scientific study that used brain imaging to determine that playing Tetris actually increased grey matter density in many areas of the brain, and improves brain efficiency in many areas.
Pajitnov is listed as an inventor on two now-expired Microsoft patents, and as a co-inventor with Henk Rogers on one active patent owned by Tetris Holding, for “Video game systems and methods for providing software-based skill adjustment mechanisms for video game systems.”