The Story of the Best Selling Video Game of all time: Tetris

Tetris has its origin in the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre (Research Lab). It was one of the foremost research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located in St Petersburg, Soviet Union (Now Russia). Created by software researcher Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, Tetris is a simple tile-matching game that took the world by storm upon it’s release.

It was developed for Electronika 60, which was a computer, made in the Soviet Union. This period was the final stage of the Cold war Era and computers were becoming more popular as well.

The game wasn’t intended as a commercial product just like the creation of the music record. But it was to be distributed freely among academic institutions around the Soviet Union and the economic bloc of countries aligned with the USSR in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas that demonstrated use cases for the software.

As USSR was a communist state, so Pajitnov did not technically own the program as the game was under the ownership of the state. Pajitnov along with the help of a colleague, Dmitry Pavlovsky, and a teen computer programmer, Vadim Gerasimov continued to work on the game project even though commercializing it would have been a risky move under the Soviet government. Gerasimov further ported the game from the old and bulky Elektronika 60 to the more widely used (IBM) compatible PCs.

As Elektronika 60 had no graphics output, the individual blocks in the game were made of different text, but with the port in PC, they were able to support color graphics. This brought the game to life.

Pajitnov and Gerasimov had started distributing Tetris for (PC) in 1985 among their friends and colleagues in various math or computer conventions. Soon the sharing spread and the game was smuggled outside USSR to Hungary. During mid-80s U.S and Japan had a more prevalent console market whereas, in Europe, gaming was primarily done on computers. There was a non-existent software market in Russia and most software was usually copied in floppy disks.

Welcome screen of 1987 version of Tetris

In 1986 Robert Stein, a salesman from the UK-based software company Andromeda spotted Tetris at Hungary’s Institute of Computer Science. He was convinced by the potential of the software and he struck an agreement with Pajitnov to sell the games internationally. But legally Tetris was still under the ownership of the Soviet government.  There was one problem, the agreement was only for the PC and not for any other platform and Stein has struck a deal with Sega to launch the game on their platform. Later Henk Rogers, another salesman from the Netherlands wanted to find a good launch game for the Nintendo’s new Game Boy handheld. The Soviet government was not happy with the Stein deal. But Rogers convinced the Soviet government and they agreed and he also formed a good relationship with Pajitnov. Later Andromeda’s license of Tetris was deemed illegal. Nintendo was given the right to launch the game on its console. The GameBoy was a platform to showcase one of the first video games exported from Russia. The game was a commercial hit and it has been ported to the most number platforms to date. The game also holds the record as the best-selling game of all time. In 1996, Pajitnov was able to reclaim the ownership of the rights and formed the Tetris Company, along with Henk Rogers. Even though he missed collecting the potential royalties for Tetris which were over hundreds of millions, he was still able to secure the future royalties.

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World’s expansive sports…

We know that trends are currently much changed in the world and people are more engaged in sports. Games are an ideal approach to unwind from the regular schedules and accomplish something else. For the most part, pros say that games keep the general people healthy and useful for the psyche too. There are numerous sorts of games, in which some of them can be effortlessly played at home with everything utilized as a part of them yet a few sports are expensive and hard to play at home. These sports are led through some amazing competitions and shows to show them everywhere throughout the world. Anybody can partake in these sorts of games if he or she is equipped for playing them.

All another typical type of sports can be played whenever however these can’t be played or can’t be taken as a profession. Everybody has no entrance in these sports because of their uniqueness. The most critical thing in every one of these sports is cash without which these sports are unrealistic. Every one of these sports is continuously connected with the exclusive class as they can manage the cost of them.

Here some sports, which are expansive

1.The Whitianga Festival of Sports:

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It is very famous sport that is conducted in New Zealand in every year. It has helicopter used in it, boat, ski racing and helicopter racing as well. In this sport there is basically a competition between one another. Owning and keeping the equipment for this game are very expensive and requires about millions of dollars. It is the most expensive sports teams in the world as well. the boat used in this game cost around $20,000 to $2 million.

2.Ski Jumping:

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Ski jumping is a very famous and interesting sport in the world. The equipment used in this sport can cost about $2,500. The recreational ski jumping is very expensive and can only be affordable by the rich people. A jumper has to spend almost $100,000 to go for this ride. It is also ensured because of the high risk in this game.

3.Formula 1:

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Yes, cars can be cheap if you search patiently and diligently for the right deal. That rule doesn’t apply to Formula 1 cars. Each Formula 1 car may cost over $1 million. Even if you want to drive someone else’s car, you will still need to bring your own sponsors with deep pockets. Sometimes, the minimum sponsorship requirement can be as high as $190,000. Oh, and these Formula 1 car are extremely fragile as well. So the insurance premiums on the cars are going to be astronomical. There’s no wonder that this sport zooms right up to the top of the most expensive sports in the world list.

4.Hot Air Balloon Racing:

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Most people did not know about the hot air balloon races in the world or it is basically a sport. An individual has to pay $300 for one hour ride on the balloon. Most people participating in them own their own balloons which are very expensive. A hot air balloon cost about $20,000 if purchased. Some measures must be adopted to participate in this sport like safety measures. The cost of training a pilot on these balloons cost about $3000 to go on these balloons.

5.Polo:

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Polo is a very famous sport also in countries like the UK. This sport is always associated with the upper class and rich people due to its high cost. Its cost is high as expenses on a horse their maintenance and all others are very high. Mostly polo players have to keep 4 horses in order to keep some as a backup plan. The matches conducted for polo can cost almost $150,000. Mostly polo matches are sponsored by famous companies that cost up to $1,000,000 which is very expensive and high charges. The one problem in this sport it causes many serious injuries to the polo players.

6.Sailing:

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There was a time when humans just tied bamboo stems with ropes and sailed all over the seas. However, that time is long gone and modern-day sailing is one of the most expensive sports in the world. To sail, you will need a sailboat, and most of them cost more than the most expensive super cars. Maintaining the sailboats is also very expensive, so it is paying the crew to run it. Oh and in case you forgot, the sailboat needs to be stored on dry land when competition season is off. Good luck building a hangar for it.

7.Equestrian:

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It is a very famous sport which involves driving, riding, and chasing horses. We all know that riding a horse is the most favorite sport of many people. It is basically very rare for sport played with only a limited number of people due to its high cost. As the cost of training and keeping a horse for all these kinds of sports are very expensive and their traveling expenses are also very high. The cost of taking a horse to some this kind of event can cost almost $200,000 each year. In this amount, the cost of a horse is not included which is very expensive as well.

8.Bobsledding:

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This interesting game was introduced in the Winter Olympics. This was first performed by the American star Lolo Jones as she got training after 2012. It is similar to F1 racing and requires a lot of sponsorship due to very high expenses. It can cost about $25,000 for bobsleds while training expenses are separate. People will not believe that the construction of bobsled can cost about millions of dollars. It is basically a team sport in which there are four members which shows cost will also four times greater.