
EA relaunches Tetris on iOS with a $30/year subscription (really) - evo_9
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/ea-relaunches-tetris-on-ios-with-a-30-year-subscription-really/
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JonnieCache
Anyone who hasn't seen "From russia with love," the BBC documentary about
tetris, I encourage you to seek it out. It covers the birth of tetris in the
soviet union's academy of sciences, and then the fascinating story of its
inexorable spread throughout the burgeoning worldwide videogame industry.

There were many fights over the licensing in different territories,
culminating with various westerners having to go cap in hand to the kremlin to
beg for the rights. It was one of the first soviet-made products to be
licensed for sale outside the Iron Curtain, and was a significant turning
point in the Perestroika movement.

It includes interviews with all the key people including the original tetris
developer, the atari and nintendo execs who fought for the rights, and even
the kremlin technocrat who held their fate in his hands. It deals with
software intellectual property issues, young upstart tech entrepreneurs,
contractual trickery and all sorts of HN type things. It'd make a great movie.

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darraghenright
I second this recommendation. It's fascinating story, and very interesting to
see the inspiration behind the game. It's also pretty amusing how all the
computer scientists in the academy got totally hooked on it. In soviet russia
game plays you!

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JonnieCache
In light of this distressing news, allow me to cheer you up with a video of
Harry "SuPa" Hong, the Tetris world record holder, maxing out the point score
of the NES port of that game to 999,999, starting from the highest selectable
difficulty level of 19. It is effectively a "perfect" Tetris game. He
eventually stops at level 29 because at that point the blocks fall to the
bottom faster than the fastest human reaction times.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99R-fKRr73I>

It is startling what an engaging experience watching that video is. If you
have ever played tetris even for a minute, your knuckles will be white and
your brain will be swimming in adrenaline. It's like watching someone juggling
knives.

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woogley
The video is very good but I have to disagree with your last paragraph. The
videos with people hard-dropping every piece and winning the invisible tetris
during the credits are more impressive imo
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC544Z37qo>

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JonnieCache
You're right, that one is more impressive, but as I understand it that version
of tetris has more forgiving physics than the NES version, and he's using a
more ergonomic controller, so I think there's a pleasing purity about maxing
out the famicom edition.

Also to be honest that second guy comes across as terrifyingly superhuman. The
NES one actually looks like something I might actually be able to eventually
do with practice, and is therefore more engaging to watch.

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ConstantineXVI
The physics are more forgiving to make up for the fact that gravity (and as a
side effect, vision) can become much less forgiving. At that point, the game's
much closer to DDR or Rock Band, except with a much less readable note chart
(the well + next 3 pieces). You have to think about where each one belongs and
have your move ready before the piece drops; instead of just one piece you
have a small amount of time to work with.

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ChrisLTD
It doesn't sound like you need to pay $30 to keep playing (in fact the base
game is now cheaper than before), you're just paying to access continuously
released extra features. Just another example of the industry's move toward
more and more DLC.

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abcd_f
An example of creative juices flowing in the wrong department of a gaming
company.

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crcsmnky
What are the rules for this type of subscription based gameplay? If you add a
feature and I use for it one month, does the feature disappear unless I pay
again next month? Are all of these types of features service based, so that
I'm getting more out of it each month?

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kin
looks like $1 iOS games with free newly released content is no more. Now we
have to pay for each new set of 10 levels that I can finish in 1 sit. How does
Tetris' gameplay style warrant new content to justify a 30$ game purchase
anyway?

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dextorious
There is a song that uses the concept of Tetris, and the folk tune used in the
game, in order to tell the "complete history in the soviet union". Besides
being "meta", it's also clever and kinda catchy.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8>

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JonnieCache
This is a fantastic piece of work, and I should point out that the film is
potentially even better than the song, which is itself brilliant. I imagine
the people who put it together have gone on to extremely successful careers if
they didn't have them already, winning for it as they did multiple
international awards.

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necenzurat
you must be shitting me... only words i can say

