Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
First Second (2016), Edition: Illustrated, 256 pages
Description
"It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you'll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You'll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega--game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft. In this graphic novel, New York Times--bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world's most popular video game."--Page [2] of cover.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member BefuddledPanda
such a fun way to learn about history, business, technology, and some other things! love the art and the structure of the whole thing.
LibraryThing member JillKenna
This book was fascinating! I thought it was just going to be about Tetris but it was about the whole history of video games and Nintendo as well! The simple artwork made the story flow very well and kept everything easy to understand. This is another one tat I highly recommend!
LibraryThing member villemezbrown
Surprisingly engaging for a book about distribution rights of a videogame.
LibraryThing member Carlathelibrarian
This graphic novel title was a little deceiving. Yes, it talks about the game Tetris, but it covers a lot more. The story goes way back to the beginning of mankind to try and determine where and how the desire for gaming began and how it developed. It moves on to Japan and the history of Nintendo
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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founded by Fusjiro Yamauchi. It began with a popular card game and grew into the technology giant we know today. About 2/3 of the way into the book we meet up with Alexey. We follow his process as he developed Tetris. It was originally distributed around Russia as Freeware, but when it was sent to a company in Hungary, it escaped to the world. The business behind the distribution of the game was daunting to Alexey and everyone was trying to make money. This section of the book is quite drawn out, but interesting to see the hoops, the many different companies involved and the politics behind this. Eventually Alexey moved to the US and got a job at Microsoft designing games. Tetris was the first game to go into space. A very interesting read.I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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LibraryThing member Brainannex
Not as much a history of Tetris as it is a history of copyright infringement.
LibraryThing member livingtech
I really wanted to like this. I'm a huge Tetris fan, and was already pretty familiar with the Tetris origin story. I'm also a huge graphic novel fan, and was primed to enjoy the combination of the two. In fact, I lay down and read the book in an hour or two the night I got it, and immediately rated
I had a chance to re-read it this morning, and realized immediately what was wrong. Two things: 1. the story is barely about Tetris. It is some parts about Tetris, in the middle mostly, but it has a beginning that makes all kinds of statements about games and the origins of games that is written in a very declarative style. These statements are written as if they are fact: some about the origins of senet (one of the first board games); some about which came first, art or games; and some hasty conclusions about the motivations of people as they play games. I would go so far as to say that all of these statements, written as if they are absolute truths, written as if they are well-researched facts, are entirely subjective at best and downright incorrect at worst.
Much later, after what I consider the best parts of the book in the middle, about the actual origination of Tetris, the book becomes primarily about the IP rights battle(s) that plagued Tetris for years. Don't get me wrong, there are many interesting stories in there, but I feel like they're so much less interesting than the origin of games and why we play games, ideas that the book begins with, makes poorly drawn conclusions about, and then abandons.
The entire book is written as if there is nothing subjective about it. These are depictions of facts. History. And after those first 30 pages about ancient history... pages with lots of statements I found suspect, I found it hard to read all the rest without a hefty suspicion. My skeptical hackles were up. The seeds of doubt had taken root. It's entirely possible the rest of the book is well researched, but I wish the book hadn't started as it did.
The second thing I disliked about the book was far more subjective. I loved the art style. The drawings in the book are awesome. But they are not, with a few pages of exceptions, at all inspired by Tetris.
Now maybe this is weird, but I'm a Tetris connoisseur. I've played every Tetris variant I can get my hands on. I've got ALL of the Tetris board games. I've got a collection of Tetris tee-shirts. So... I like Tetris art. And I really expected to find a bunch of it in this book. Overall, I was pretty disappointed. For the most part, pentominos are really only found on pages that depict the actual game itself. The cover is an exception, it is not what we find inside.
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it 5-stars on Goodreads, even though I knew at the time I had some reservations. But I didn't write a review. I didn't think about it deeply enough to articulate those reservations to myself.I had a chance to re-read it this morning, and realized immediately what was wrong. Two things: 1. the story is barely about Tetris. It is some parts about Tetris, in the middle mostly, but it has a beginning that makes all kinds of statements about games and the origins of games that is written in a very declarative style. These statements are written as if they are fact: some about the origins of senet (one of the first board games); some about which came first, art or games; and some hasty conclusions about the motivations of people as they play games. I would go so far as to say that all of these statements, written as if they are absolute truths, written as if they are well-researched facts, are entirely subjective at best and downright incorrect at worst.
Much later, after what I consider the best parts of the book in the middle, about the actual origination of Tetris, the book becomes primarily about the IP rights battle(s) that plagued Tetris for years. Don't get me wrong, there are many interesting stories in there, but I feel like they're so much less interesting than the origin of games and why we play games, ideas that the book begins with, makes poorly drawn conclusions about, and then abandons.
The entire book is written as if there is nothing subjective about it. These are depictions of facts. History. And after those first 30 pages about ancient history... pages with lots of statements I found suspect, I found it hard to read all the rest without a hefty suspicion. My skeptical hackles were up. The seeds of doubt had taken root. It's entirely possible the rest of the book is well researched, but I wish the book hadn't started as it did.
The second thing I disliked about the book was far more subjective. I loved the art style. The drawings in the book are awesome. But they are not, with a few pages of exceptions, at all inspired by Tetris.
Now maybe this is weird, but I'm a Tetris connoisseur. I've played every Tetris variant I can get my hands on. I've got ALL of the Tetris board games. I've got a collection of Tetris tee-shirts. So... I like Tetris art. And I really expected to find a bunch of it in this book. Overall, I was pretty disappointed. For the most part, pentominos are really only found on pages that depict the actual game itself. The cover is an exception, it is not what we find inside.
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LibraryThing member readingbeader
The history of Tetris in graphic novel format. I don't think I'd want to read this any other way. Who knew the game we love so much had such an unusual back story?
LibraryThing member reader1009
graphic nonfiction - history of games, the development of the tetris game, and how many fought for the various rights to sell it afterwards.
LibraryThing member dono421846
Had no idea there was such a story behind this ubiquitous game. The story is extremely effectively told.
LibraryThing member knerd.knitter
I’m not usually a fan of non-fiction, but this graphic novel that tells the story of how the video game Tetris became a sensation across the globe was fascinating!
LibraryThing member bmanglass
Stuck between a 2/2.5 and a 3 because I enjoyed a lot of aspects of it, particularly the beginning and end which spoke more to what draws people to games and gaming in a psychological and philosophical sense. By contrast the middle section felt like a largely unbroken series of nearly identical
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businessmen sitting in board rooms, getting on and off planes, and arguing about contracts and the legal rights to Tetris. I get that this is actually what happened in terms of plot, but it also feels like all there is to take in visually as well. I found the graphic style pretty engaging for the most part, but I wish the bookend commentary on games and the battles over the distribution rights to Tetris were more connected thematically. Show Less
Awards
Great Graphic Novels for Teens (Nonfiction — 2016)
New York Public Library Best Books: For Teens (Nonfiction — 2016)
OYAN Graphic Rave (2017)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016-10-11
Physical description
256 p.; 8.45 inches
ISBN
162672315X / 9781626723153