Dan Ackerman, the Tetris Effect

124 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PLAY • FALL 2017 restructuring of the domestic spaces by Newman leaves the reader with an new “toys” (however technical) should be account of the highly gendered recep- of interest. tion of Pac-Man (and of course, Ms. Pac- Throughout, Newman pays particular Man), crediting the game with sealing the attention to the gendered nature of games progression of video games from “new- as play, noting that pinball machines and fangled gadget” to “a fixture of everyday other precursors of the home video game life” (p. 199). His account of the game’s role console were typically found in spaces in making women more visible as play- dominated by men (p. 31). He suggests ers, and the subsequent attacks on these that the arrival of the console in the living women and even on the game itself, will room can be understood in part as a mas- be all-too-familiar to anyone immersed culine alternative to television, “a medium in the current discourse of game history long denigrated on the basis of its femi- (p. 194). As the field of video game stud- nized and lower-class cultural status” as ies matures, Newman’s work will play an a fixture in the domestic sphere (p. 72). important role in our understanding of its Discussions of historically situated gam- origins. His work is particularly valuable ing rarely engage with gender on this level. for interrogating (and illuminating) the Carly Kocurek’s Coin-Operated Americans: moral panics that inevitably accompany Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game new media. He captures both the con- Arcade (2015) marks a notable exception temporaneous fears and support of video and makes a great companion text to this games at this moment of emergence and volume. Newman’s strength lies in his their inevitable resolution as the novel detailed engagement with the artifacts of becomes mundane. gendered discourse throughout the text and particularly his inclusion of comics, —Anastasia Salter, University of Central advertisements, and other primary sources Florida, Orlando, FL that foreground this gendered tension. He connects cultural changes happening in the American household on every level, from the changing names and ownership of family, recreation, media, and “rumpus” The Tetris Effect: The Game That rooms to the advent of the so-called “man Hypnotized the World cave” (pp. 80–85). Newman’s account of Dan Ackerman the different status occupied by computers New York: PublicAffairs, 2016. Contents, and video games proves particularly com- acknowledgments, selected bibliography, pelling in these terms, noting that the very index. 264 pp. $25.99 hardcover. ISBN: presence of a keyboard demands a differ- 9781610396110 ent spatial configuration and implies the male-dominated environment of the office Tetris: The Games People Play (p. 143). These discussions are illustrated Box Brown by painfully sexist advertisements from New York: First Second, 2016. 253 pp. the time depicting the stratified spaces. $19.99 cloth. ISBN: 9781626723153 Book Reviews 125 Inventions, Cold War politics, friendships, matic stress disorder (PTSD. This, how- betrayals, revenge, courtroom drama, ever, is not the focus of this book. Rather, false contracts, international intrigue, Ackerman’s story is at turns fascinating, and money, lots of money—this list could horrifying, and hilarious. describe any number of blockbuster mov- The book begins with Henk Rog- ies or critically acclaimed television shows. ers crossing the proverbial threshold In this case, however, it depicts the story of into unknown Soviet Russia. Rogers Tetris, starting with Alexey Pajitnov play- intended to secure the rights to Tetris for ing with pentomino puzzle pieces in Soviet Nintendo through his game publishing Russia and closing with a mostly happy business, Bullet-Proof Software. Follow- ending for the heroes of these stories. I ing this introduction, the first section of am purposeful about the use of “story” the book covers how Rogers ended up in and “hero” here, for this is how these two this position and how Pajitnov grew up, books—The Tetris Effect: The Game That joined the Russian Academy of Sciences, Hypnotized the World by journalist Dan and designed Tetris with his friend Dmi- Ackerman and Tetris: The Games People try Pavlovsky and a high school student Play by graphic novelist Box Brown—pres- named Vadim Gerasimov. The game went ent the history of Tetris. This seemingly viral and finally landed in Hungary. simple geospatial puzzle game, inspired by Part 2 of the book switches to Robert the pentomino puzzles of Pajitnov’s youth, Stein, a software publisher who specialized had profound effects on the lives of people in importing cheaper Eastern European and nations. software into the European and U.S. mar- Ackerman’s book The Tetris Effect is kets. Stein saw the potential of Tetris, sent organized into three sections, each with a message to Pajitnov (who could not him- six to seven chapters, in which he tells the self enter business because of the commu- story of Tetris’s creation and distribution. nist antienterprise laws of the USSR), and At the end of each section, he includes started the process of licensing Tetris for a bonus level wherein he considers an international distribution. And this was aspect of Tetris and its influence on the where the train wreck began. Within short game industry, people, and society. Ack- order, illegal licenses were sold and resold, erman summarizes Jeffrey Goldsmith’s three major players vyed for rights—Stein, influential article “This Is Your Brain on a major media conglomerate called the Tetris,” emphasizing that Tetris’s use of Mirror group, and Rogers on behalf of procedural and spatial memory repeti- Nintendo—and representatives of the tion leads to a type of persistent visuo- Soviet government realized that individu- spatial memory—people can see Tetris als had been abusing its asset. Law suits, when they are not playing it—and that revenge, and political threats pepper these Tetris ultimately reshapes how we see pages, and throughout, Pajitnov remains a our world. In other sections, Ackerman silent bystander to the game he created. Part shows that Tetris makes human brains 3 sees the Tetris rights resolved in favor of more efficient or that it can help counter Nintendo, allowing the game to be pack- the formation of debilitating post-trau- aged and released with the new Gameboy. 126 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PLAY • FALL 2017 Millions were produced, a lot of money was of creation, relationships, and internal dia- made, and meanwhile the USSR collapsed. log from Pajitnov’s articulation of games The last chapter reads like the final credits as the confluence of humanity and tech- in a film biography, indicating where the nology (pp. 67–68) to Stein’s self-satisfied main players are now and briefly summa- visage as he imagines all of the money he rizing Rogers and Pajitnov’s partnership will make (illegally) licensing Tetris. (based on long friendship) in forming The The only major critique I have of these Tetris Company. two histories is not the fault of the authors; Brown’s graphic novel covers much these are popular histories. However, I the same story, albeit in much broader missed the typical academic citations strokes. His book begins with a prehistoric for source information. This is especially definition of games emerging from play pertinent because the two books do not and transforming into art (at the point always agree on their facts, providing dif- of creation) and fun (at the point of con- ferent stories about the first time Rogers sumption). This may be the weakest part and Pajitnov met, for example. Ackerman of the book because it glosses over some does have a selected bibliography, but it particularly contentious material. After is less a bibliography than a suggested this introduction, Brown takes an ensem- reading list for those interested. Because ble approach to this history, cycling back of the nature of the graphic novel, Brown to Pajitnov and his creative thinking sev- tends to skip large swaths of information, eral times, but skirting away from making presenting sequential bites instead. I rec- any of the actors in this drama the hero. ommend reading these together because The content is elegantly organized into they complement each other. What I espe- sections demarcated by a single back page cially appreciated about these two books with introductory portraits of the main (in addition to a truly entertaining story) characters who appear in the unfolding was the careful record of Tetris as a game narrative. This is brilliant organizational that went through multiple iterations and strategy because there are simply so many an industrial account of the role of dis- powerful people in the story to keep track tribution in the creation of cultural texts. of, and it reminds the reader that games are not made in vacuums by nameless peo- —Jennifer deWinter, Worcester Polytechnic ple. Real actors affect the production, dis- Institute, Worcester, MA tribution, and consumption of the game, and they are as thoughtful, selfish, giving, and petty as most other humans. The strength of the graphic novel Cultural Code: Video Games and approach to the history of Tetris is that Latin America the reader can see examples from the Phillip Penix-Tadsen game, the advertisements, and the meet- Cambridge: MIT Press, 2016. ings and parties referenced. Brown also Acknowledgments, notes, references, uses the affordances of the comic page to and index. 333 pp. represent the abstract thinking processes $53.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780262034050.

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