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Twenty-five years is a long time by any standards, but it's an era when you're talking about video games. In an industry that routinely refers to three year old games as obsolete, it's nothing short of amazing that one game continues to be played extensively a quarter of a century after it was first released. That's right folks, Tetris turned twenty five on June 6 this year. And, just like its famous falling blocks, shows no signs of slowing down.
Today, Tetris is more than just a videogame, it's a meme. It's been played on every possible gaming device. It's been projected onto buildings. It's been performed live by human actors. A man was arrested and sent to prison for refusing to stop playing it on his mobile phone when on a flight. The L-shaped block (a tetromino, for the technically demanding among you) once won first place in an online poll for 'best video game character'-beating contenders like Mario, Solid Snake and Duke Nukem. Tetris, on all platforms, has sold 125 million copies to date. That's more than the entire population of Germany.
So what's all the fuss about? The durability of Tetris is testimony to Alexey Pajitnov's elegant, timeless design. Seven differently shaped...