Alexey Pajitnov

Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov[lower-alpha 1] (born 14 March 1956) is a Russian video game designer and computer engineer who developed Tetris while working for the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a Soviet government-founded R&D center.

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Leonidovich and the family name is Pajitnov.
Alexey Pajitnov
Alexey Pajitnov in Barcelona, Spain in
June 2008
Born
Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov

(1956-03-14) 14 March 1956
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
NationalityRussian
Occupation
Known forDeveloper of Tetris
AwardsGame Developers Choice Awards First Penguin Award
LARA - Der Deutsche Games Award

He only started to get royalties from his creation in 1996 when he and Henk Rogers formed The Tetris Company.[1]

Biography

Pajitnov was born on 14 March 1956 in Moscow, in the Soviet Union. He studied applied mathematics at the Moscow Aviation Institute.[2][3] He then went on to work on speech recognition at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre where he would develop the first version of Tetris on an Electronika 60 computer in 1984.

As a child, he was a fan of puzzles and played with pentomino toys.[4] In creating Tetris, he drew inspiration from these toys.[4] Pajitnov created Tetris with the help of Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov in 1984. The game, first available in the Soviet Union, appeared in the West in 1986.

Pajitnov also created a sequel to Tetris, entitled Welltris, which has the same principle, but in a three-dimensional environment where the player sees the playing area from above.[5] Tetris was licensed and managed by Soviet company ELORG, which had a monopoly on the import and export of computer hardware and software in the Soviet Union, and advertised with the slogan "From Russia with Love" (on NES: "From Russia with Fun!"). Because he was employed by the Soviet government, Pajitnov did not receive royalties.

Pajitnov, together with Vladimir Pokhilko, moved to the United States in 1991 and later, in 1996, founded The Tetris Company with Henk Rogers, which finally allowed him to collect royalties from his game. He helped design the puzzles in the Super NES versions of Yoshi's Cookie and designed the game Pandora's Box, which incorporates more traditional jigsaw-style puzzles.

He was employed by Microsoft from October 1996 until 2005. While there, he worked on the Microsoft Entertainment Pack: The Puzzle Collection, MSN Mind Aerobics and MSN Games groups. Pajitnov's new, enhanced version of Hexic, Hexic HD, was included with every new Xbox 360 Premium package.

On 18 August 2005, WildSnake Software announced that Pajitnov would be collaborating with them to release a new line of puzzle games.[6]

Personal life

Pajitnov's son, Dmitri, died in a skiing accident on Mount Rainier in 2017.[7][8]

Works
TitleYearPlatform(s)Role(s)
Tetris1984Electronika 60, IBM-PCOriginal concept
(with Vadim Gerasimov & Dmitry Pavlovsky)
Welltris1989Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh & ZX SpectrumDesigner
(with Andrei Sgenov)
Faces1990Amiga, DOS, MacintoshOriginal concept
(with Vladimir Pokhilko)
Hatris1990TurboGrafx-16, Arcade, Game Boy & NESOriginal concept
Knight Move1990Famicom Disk System (Japan)Idealist
Wordtris1991DOS, Game Boy, Classic Mac OS, SNESDesigner
El-Fish1993DOSOriginal concept
(with Vladimir Pokhilko)
Knight Moves1995WindowsIdealist
Ice & Fire1995Windows, Macintosh & PlayStationOriginal concept
(with Vladimir Pokhilko)
Tetrisphere1997Nintendo 64Contributor
Microsoft Entertainment Pack: The Puzzle Collection1997Windows & Game Boy ColorDesigner
Microsoft Pandora's Box1999WindowsDesigner
Microsoft A.I. Puzzler2001WindowsDesigner
Hexic2003WindowsOriginal concept and design
Hexic HD2005Xbox 360Original concept and design
Dwice 2006WindowsDesigner
Hexic 22007Xbox 360Designer
Marbly2013iOSOriginal concept and design

Awards and recognition

In 1996, GameSpot named him as the fourth most influential computer game developer of all time.[9]

On 7 March 2007, he received the Game Developers Choice Awards First Penguin Award. The award was given for pioneering the casual games market.[10]

On 24 June 2009, he received the honorary award at the LARA - Der Deutsche Games Award in Cologne, Germany.[11]

In 2012, IGN included Pajitnov on their list of 5 Memorable Video Game Industry One-Hit Wonders, calling him "the ultimate video game one-hit wonder."[12]

On 2015, Pajitnov won the Bizkaia Award at the Fun & Serious Game Festival[13][14]

See also
  • BreakThru!, video game endorsed by Pajitnov
  • ClockWerx, video game endorsed by Pajitnov

Notes
  1. Russian: Алексей Леонидович Пажитнов, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksʲej lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ ˈpaʐɨtnəf]

References
  1. "Tetris: a history". Atarihq.com. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  2. "Alexey Pajitnov, Creator of Tetris". tetris.com. tetris holding. Retrieved 2018-08-05. He received his Masters degree in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Aviation
  3. "History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Software history, Tetris of Alexey Pajitnov". history-computer.com. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  4. "Meet the men who built the only perfect video game: Tetris". Digital Trends. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
  5. "Screenshots from Welltris, retrieved 31-10-2007". Mds.mdh.se. Archived from the original on 2006-04-22. Retrieved 2009-11-20.
  6. "WildSnake newsletter 18 August 2005, retrieved 31-10-2007". Wildsnake.com. 2005-08-18. Archived from the original on 12 November 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-20.
  7. "Dmitri Pajitnov - In Memoriam, retrieved February 9, 2018".
  8. "Skier identified after body was missing for a month on Mount Rainier, retrieved Feb 9, 2018". The News Tribune. 2017-08-22.
  9. "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 2005-02-21. Archived from the original on 21 February 2005. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  10. "2007 Game Developers Choice Awards To Honor Miyamoto, Pajitnov". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 7 March 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  11. "News report on Deutsche Games Award 2009". Heise.de. Archived from the original on 26 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-25.
  12. Reilly, Luke. "5 Memorable Video Game Industry One-Hit Wonders - Games Feature at IGN". IGN. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  13. "F&S 2015 BIZKAIA AWARD".
  14. "El inventor del Tetris desvela su exito". Retrieved 8 July 2019.
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