January 28, 2024 • 28 mins
We drop the pieces in place to unlock how the best-selling video game of all time continues to obsess players 40 years after its creation.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Television #tetris #videogames #Ads #simplify #popculture
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Television #tetris #videogames #Ads #simplify #popculture
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Speeding Human. Today on Speaking Human, we dropped the pieces in place to
unlock how the best selling video gameof all time continues to obsess players forty
years after its creation. Speaking Human. Welcome to Speaking Human, where we
(00:30):
simplify the world of marketing for humans. I'm Shad Calmly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber. What'sup, Shadow? What's going on?
Patrick? So you're fresh off watchingthe Apple TV movie Tetris, Right,
Yeah, I did. I watchedit all. It was an accomplishment,
I thought, so I'm saying it'sthe greatest accomplishment there is. Yeah,
(00:54):
you didn't finish that movie, right, I went, I got a little
more than halfway, which I thoughtwas in a publishment in and of itself.
What did you What did you learnfrom the movie about the challenge of
bringing that game to the world.I'll tell you what I learned. What
did you learn? I learned something? The most important thing I learned was
(01:14):
like in the first two minutes ofthe movie, and that's where the name
Tetris comes from. Mmm. Yeah, which is the combination of tetra,
which means four. All the blocksare a variation of four and tennis.
That was kind of the weird partwas the tennis part. I wouldn't have
guessed that. Yeah, that wasyou know, worth the price of admission
(01:37):
for me. Yeah, I hadno idea that it had anything to do
with tennis. Seemed like a stretch. I was like, why tennis?
But then when you watch the movie, realize the creator was one of his
favorite games. So of course that'show and that's how all great names are
created. You know, it's acombination of words by whoever creates them.
They're like, hey, let's createthis word. What is it? It's
(02:00):
podcast? Yeah, google tetris.They're basically just nonsense. But now it's
like there was never a time theynever were mm hmm. Yeah, that's
what it feels like. Tetris isdefinitely one of those words, whether it's
silly or not. Because it's avideo game, it's a vocabulary word.
(02:23):
I think most people know. Iwould think so too. I think if
you ask most people what's tetris,they probably know that in and of itself,
is really the accomplishment right to createsomething that becomes a common, everyday
household word. That's pretty yeah.I mean not only that, something that
they make a movie about the creationof mm hmm. Yeah. You know,
(02:45):
whether or not you like the movie, it was pretty interesting, you
know, learning about the challenges ofbringing that to the world in a way
that was as grandiose as it isright, because it's very possible that could
have died on the vine and notgotten seen or played by a lot of
people simply because it wasn't handled theright way. And a lot of it
(03:07):
I think was luck the way thatit sort of worked out, because it
could have gone the op is away. Yeah. So it is an
interesting story. It's got you know, it does have a real backstory to
it, and there is you seehow one decision another way and this thing
doesn't happen. Yeah, So thatthat part I think is really really interesting.
But then, you know, we'relooking at this game that is one
(03:29):
of the best selling games of alltime. It's been downloaded more than five
hundred million times on mobile devices.Authorized copies, just authorized copies have earned
close to a billion dollars in totalsales for something that was created didn't really
have any graphics when it was created, you know, and so addictive and
(03:52):
playable by so many ages and skillsets of players that it's a household term,
right, It's insane. Yeah.And what we see, you know,
mostly with video games, is theycome along, they're a big deal,
they burn brightly, and maybe theystick around for a decade, you
know, create a few different sequelsor variations or something like that, and
(04:14):
then they're kind of like fade away. That's the natural kind of way of
things. We're talking forty years,you know, four decades of this game
remaining pretty consistently popular, not reallychanging all that much, and people just
kind of knowing it and it's beinglike just this staple of the video game
world, you know, just thissomething that's like ingrained in pop culture.
(04:36):
Whether you played it, you know, back in the eighties, or you
play it now, or it's somethingyou like play on your phone. It's
it's stuck with us, and wetalk about this how ingrained this thing is.
There was this movie they made now, which is kind of the backstory.
In twenty fourteen, they announced plansfor a movie based on the game
(04:58):
itself. Mind you, Tetris isa game about falling blocks and clicking them
together. They were gonna make amovie about that somehow, not only we're
gonna gonna make a movie, butthe producer said it wouldn't be one film,
It's gonna be a trilogy. Said, the story we conceived is so
big, we're splitting it up intomultiple movies. People talking online about all
(05:21):
sorts of things. What is theactual narrative of this going to be about?
Are there gonna be giant talking shapes? The producer at that time said,
we're not gonna have blocks with feetrunning around the movie. But it's
great that people think. So that'sthe bar rather low. We never got
that movie. Obviously, we nevergot this trilogy. But what do you
think, you know, if you'reusing your kind of brain creatively, what
(05:44):
do you think a movie based onthe game Tetris would be about? What's
what's the plot there? What's yourplot? How would you make a movie
about Tetris? I think I wouldmake it about aliens and what are the
aliens doing? Well? One wouldthink they were playing Tetris? But I
think I think, you know,maybe this movie has something to do with
(06:09):
Tetris's sort of this like universal mathematicalcode, and you know, it's like
it's like human DNA, and whenyou unlock the code, you know,
something happens. Think of if you'reof our generation, shadden my generation.
If you're of our generation, dearlistener, think of not Flight of the
(06:32):
Navigator. It was the Last Starfighter. Remember the Last YEP and the Last
Starfighter. If you remember the playedthe video game. You played the Arcade
video game because you know, wedidn't have Nintendo then, so he played
the Arcade and the aliens they comefrom outer space and that's how they They
(06:56):
recruited starfighters, these guys who wouldfly these space jets. Essentially, so
if you beat the game or whatever, if you were really good at the
game, they would take you andyou would fight for this galactic I don't
know if it was a force,freedom force or something, you know,
alien species. Think of that andcombine those things and you think, okay,
(07:18):
kind of like that. You know, Tetris is this universal mathematical algorithm
and someone solves it and suddenly youknow there's this universe opening up to them,
kind of like the Matrix. Rightyeah, I think Matrix and Starve
the Last Starfighter. That's it rightthere. I mean, what a great
pitch. Who's not buying that?And it comes off the heels of the
(07:41):
Matrix trilogies which you know, ifyou're going to make a trilogy, you
pitch it with it's going to belike the Matrix but better. But with
the Last Starfighter. People be likewhat arcade games be Like, Yeah,
set in the eighties, because that'swhen Tetris came out. I like that.
I was thinking, you know,something along the same lines, where
(08:03):
Tetris is kind of like it's notthe plot, you know, because how
is it? How is it theplot? Yeah, that doesn't really I
mean maybe my tiny brain just can'twrap itself around that. But it's like
a part of the plot, youknow, it's integrated into the plot.
So I was thinking something like abillionaire video game inventor or something, and
(08:26):
that's like his lock, his fortuneslocked up behind Tetris. Oh so people
have to heist their way in bybeating Tetris, okay, to somehow to
get to his you know, somethingvaluable or his money something like that.
In order to get into his vault, they have to like beat different levels
of Tetris. Maybe they actually enlistthe kid who just beat you know,
(08:50):
who's the only person who ever beatTetris, that thirteen year old. Yeah,
so maybe some criminals grab that kid, force him to work with them,
or you know, not that kidhimself, but kid who is the
only person who's beat the game inthe world, make him help them get
into this billionaire his house who theyknow is locked up behind Tetris. Yeah,
and it's part of a three partmovie series of beating this Kid.
(09:15):
Yeah watch it, watch this kidplay Tetris for three movies. Yeah.
That's also brings us to a greatpoint that just recently the end of twenty
twenty three, this thirteen year oldboy, Willis Gibson became the first person
who advanced so far in the originalNintendo version of Tetris that the game froze,
which is essentially what they've coined asbeating Tetris. First person known person
(09:41):
to beat Tetris. It's pretty crazya thirteen year old. Yeah, it's
actually real crazy that nobody's ever donethis before. Mm hmmm. And it
seemed really easy for this kid.Yeah, he had like a real style
in which he played. He playedit on the original Nintendo controller, but
(10:01):
he would hold the controller at anangle and he was like playing it like
a almost like a guitar or something. It was really crazy the way he
would hit the controller probably more natural, and that's what helped him. But
yeah, crazy all this time.Is it true that he was created from
the DNA of Bruce Willis and MelGibson? How did you it is true?
(10:28):
I mean that explains why he canbeat anything instantly Willis Gibson, Well,
yeah, I mean makes sense.He's a lethal weapon of Hudson Hawk,
of Hudson Hawk. Yeah, Imean he made that Tetris game,
(10:48):
die Hard with a Vengeance. Yeah. I don't even know if we'd mentioned
we're talking about Tetris today. Didwe not talk about Tetris? We should
have mentioned. I mean, we'vetalked about Tetris, but I don't think
we've explicitly stated today's show is aboutTetris. Yeah, the game the legend
created in nineteen eighty five. Howmany years is that? That's almost forty
(11:11):
years, right, Yeah, it'salmost forty years. I think it's actually
created in nineteen eighty four, cameout in nineteen eighty five. Yeah,
so one of the most popular gamesof all time. That's to me,
that's pretty crazy, because you wouldthink with all of what we have today,
the complexity of games, you havethis very simplistic game, which is
(11:33):
timeless, right, it is timeless, just like the title of this podcast.
Now we have to use it.Well, now it's locked in.
I agree. And even when youmentioned it as like the best selling game
of all time or up there withthe best selling games of all time,
I think if you ask people what'sthe best selling game of all time,
(11:54):
I don't know if they would immediatelythink of Tetris. What would you say,
Like if if we weren't talking aboutand you didn't know, is there
any game that comes to mind thatyou would think, Yeah, that's probably
the most popular game. I'd probablythink of Minecraft or Fortnite, and maybe
that's recency bias, you know,But but like Super Mario Brothers or something
like that, then I would goto something else like that, but that
(12:16):
also seemed to have I would thinksomething more recent would sell more. M
Yeah, I see why you're goingthere for sure, Maybe like Grand Theft
Auto something, you know, oneof those games, one of those in
that series, something like that.Pac Man couldn't be pac Man, right,
I don't know what they have thosenumbers, but I wouldn't think so
(12:39):
because that when that initially, youknow, those initial systems came out.
I guess it's been around so longenough that it's sold repeatedly, you know,
like Tetris. Yeah, but inthe yeah, the and then the
versions of that, right, there'salways I guess that's up for debate,
whether or not, like you includemisspac Man and pac Man. Yeah.
(13:00):
Do you're saying with super Mario,people aren't buying the same super Mario,
you know, because they keep makingso many different ones. That also begs
the question of whether or not Tetris, because there are other versions of Tetris.
You know, there's like Tetris Blitzon my phone right now. You
know, there's they're not the originalTetris. Are they counting those? I
don't know. In that I wouldn'tthink so, But I don't know.
(13:24):
That's a good question. Who's keepingthese stats? Yeah, that's all.
It's all arbitrary. What about likeSimCity? Does that count? See?
This is why, like when Icompare it, I I naturally go back
to it kind of makes sense becauseTetris is super simple and it is anybody
(13:46):
could pick it up. This iskind of what made me see the genius
in it when I was watching themovie. Is that Yeah, I guess
I never really thought of it thatway. But that's what made that so
successful is that, like an oldperson can play this so easily. It's
like way easier than a crossword puzzle. You know, like an old old
person and a kid can pick itup and play it and they have the
(14:09):
same No, neither one of themhave an advantage, really, right,
Yeah, and that's one better.I'd say an alien could come down,
yeah, grab it and just startplaying and understand it. Well, that's
because it's a global mathematic code.Yeah, it's the premise of a trilogy,
(14:31):
so you know that that's actually true. But yeah, I know,
I totally agree. It's it's sosimplistic in nature that it's almost impossible to
not say that this is the choiceof a new generation. Another thing I'll
say about it, and this goes, you know, back to kind of
the most recent Tetris movie and thebig thing about it. I think you
(14:54):
will probably agree with this because youlived through this event. Tetris would not
be Tetris without the game boy,Yes, agreed. One of the super
cases of you know, as youwere kind of talking about right place,
right time, you know, Ikind of think to a much lesser degree,
but something like Angry Birds when thewhen the iPhone first started getting popular.
(15:18):
You know, it's just you happento be there and get on the
train as it was leaving the stationTetris when you had the Game Boy.
I don't know if people would havenecessarily played that game if it was just
a Nintendo game, you know,they probably would have found it to some
extent, but the fact that itwas on the game way, like it
was so perfect for the Game Boy. They were such like a great match.
(15:39):
I don't know that there was abetter Game Boy game, you know,
something that was more made for that. The match of media and medium
was like perfect there that you couldjust sit there and play that game on
there forever. It was way betterthan the Super Mario Brothers game on the
Tetris. Yeah, yeah, itwas. It was like it was made
(16:00):
for it, right, and thecircumstances that led to it becoming such a
household item really in the Western worldmore than anything, right, it's the
thing that introduced it to us inAmerica to a degree that it I mean
everyone had one, right, Everyonewas a fighting for these game systems that
(16:22):
were handheld as well as playing thisgame we probably shouldn't have known about because
it was from somewhere where it wasvery difficult to get out for a variety
of reasons. You know, we'retalking about the Soviet Union at the time,
so yeah, I mean one ofthose serendipitous things that sort of happened
caused a global phenomenon of sorts.The pieces fell into place, and I
(16:45):
can even still picture the Game Boysort of cover art of Tetris where they
kind of make it look super exciting. You know, there's like these trails
of the blocks as they're falling,which looks through space again space. Maybe
that fits your your space narrative.Yeah, well, and the Game Boy
version, I came to find out, is one of the best selling games
(17:08):
of all time, with more thanthirty five million copies sold, So that
in and of itself, you knowyou're talking about that's a really big feat.
You know, we were talking aboutthis before we even did this podcast,
and you're like, you have thesegames like Fortnite like you mentioned,
or Call of Duty or Grand TheftAuto, all these newer games that you
(17:29):
would think would be far more onelucrative but also selling copies. You would
think that they would have sold asmany copies, but they haven't. I
wonder, do you know what theother best selling game Boy games are beyond
Mario. I'm just wondering, dowe even remember any of these? Excite
Bike Excite Bike for game Boy?I don't know. Is this a personal
(17:52):
pick? Yeah? I loved thatgame when I was a kid. I
never played the game Boy version ofthat game. Yeah, something about Excite
Bike. Man, I don't knowwhat it was about that game. Uh,
you're just excited for bikes, Ithink, you know, I mean
anything that you could play while youwere at your grandparents' house. Yeah,
yeah, I mean bored out ofyour mind at whatever event it is,
(18:17):
car ride, you name it.You know. It was really the first.
There's the phone before the phone.Yeah, it was the first,
and it changed the world for preteenkids who no longer had to sit board
at any relative's house. Uh huh. They had a little screen to stare
at. They could take their videogames with them. It was the very
(18:38):
first time when you know, parentswere like, you're you're gonna make yourself
dumb looking at that screen all thetime. It wasn't a very I think
they were always saying that about videogames, right, well, television yeah,
well, television, then musicians,yeah, and then you know,
handheld nunce phones, falls pat youknow one. I think last thing I'll
(19:02):
kind of say about hit on withTetris and why it kind of speaks to
us as humans, the innate humandesire for order. What is tetris?
All you're doing is trying to putthings in order, you know, you're
trying to clean up the mess,get things straight, get those clean lines.
I think that's sort of a bigreason it had this kind of cultural
(19:26):
impact even now. I know whenI'm like, you know, trying to
get all our bags in the carfor vacation, I'll, you know,
reference it as like tetrising, yeah, or playing a game of Tetris.
You know, that's kind of likeit's lived on in that sort of way
too. So I think it kindof hits on something there, Like there's
a a good feeling when you getthose rows into perfect order, when you
(19:48):
get that kind of straight line ontop and knock those four rows down,
there's this endorphin, yeah, serotonin, something something shooting now there. Yeah.
As a matter of fact, Iwas reading this thing where in researching
this, I guess in the studiesof Tetris, they've called it the Tetris
effect, Like it's actually a thingwhere the way that it's sort of people's
(20:15):
brains react to this, right,it's like a drug. It is like
a drug and video games, youknow, in this like concert rewarding system.
I mean, the stuff that theytalk about today on games. The
Tetris is really the beginning of that, I think, and the way that
our brains sort of react to therewards that it gives you, you know,
(20:38):
when when you make a line disappear, all those things make you want
to keep playing it. It's addictive. It is addictive. It occupies a
really interesting space though, I thinkin that I'll say it's one of these
everybody really likes it. I don'tknow if anybody really loves it. I
(20:59):
don't know if you ask even atthe time when it was out, you
know, I don't know if kidson the playground were talking about Tetris.
To me, is kind of likethe peanut, butter and jelly sandwich.
It's never gonna win a sandwich contest. Yeah, but everybody likes it,
you know what I mean. It'sgonna be hard for you to find people
who are like, no, notfor me, not into it at all.
(21:22):
So it's got a very high rating, you know what I mean,
But I don't know how much peopleare like, that's my favorite, that's
my favorite game of all time.A flip side of that, though,
and a really interesting flip side ofthat, if you were stuck on a
desert island, it might be thegame you want with you. Well,
yeah, true, true, youknow. So it's one of those things
if you're choosing, if you're like, what's your favorite game of all time,
(21:45):
You're probably gonna kick the game thatgives you, like the biggest high.
I don't know that Tetris gives youthe biggest high, but Tetris is
probably the game you can keep playingthe longest and get the most out of.
Yeah, you know, why doyou think this game has lived on
past something like a pac Man,you know, or you can think of
like a whole bunch of other games. Even Mario is obviously living on,
but in a different way that itkeeps producing new games. Tetris is kind
(22:07):
of this living on as the samething as it always was. It's kind
of the kind of the beauty ofit. And also you're right, I
mean, it's not like it's notfresh and new. You see it being
referenced in people talking about its popularity. I can say, just from my
own personal experience, I have Tetrison my phone right. It is one
(22:32):
of those games where I've found,as I've gotten older, I need the
game that I can just pick upand play for a minute and then put
it down and go about my day, Like I just need that little kind
of take me away from this momentin time. Or you're super bored,
you're waiting in the doctor's office orwhatever it is, and you can just
hit a few buttons, get afew lines, make them disappear, get
(22:55):
your fix, and then go aboutwhat you're doing, you know. And
it is that kind of game.Therefore, you know, it might be
the perfect game in this world thatwe live in today, right where everybody
has a phone. Like, youdon't need a game boy, right,
you don't need a piece of technologylike a game boy or whatever that is,
(23:17):
you know, a switch to playthis thing kind of cool. Also,
I'll say it's on sixty five platforms, over sixty five platforms, so
no matter where you want to getit, you can get it, And
that might work for sixty five platforms, there's apparently there, I mean over
time. I'm sure that's over time, okay, But you know that might
(23:38):
also play to what you're saying.I think the subtext of what you're saying
is is it really as popular?And I think when something is as saturated
with something like Tetris that you know, it's like there's not a lot of
demand for it because the supply isso heavy. So maybe that's why it's
not as unted or desired as much. So I you know, the other
(24:03):
thing I would probably just say,like you know, if I was just
thinking about unique things about Tetris,is this and what made us really want
to talk about this on the podcastis this idea of a brand, right,
a brand that is very memorable,and within that brand you have things
(24:25):
like the music, which is supermemorable. Those things from a marketing angle,
I mean cannot be understated. Theyreally can't. I mean, maybe
it wasn't completely by design initially,right, like how they branded this.
I think Nintendo probably had a bigrole in that and making this you know,
(24:45):
appealing graphically visually to sell it withthe game Boy maybe, but beyond
that, you know, the brandit's been it's been managed well, I'll
say that. You know, Ithink over time they've put things in place
that have sort of like controlled thebrand a bit. And whether or not
(25:07):
you see what's happening behind the scenes, I think it has given legs to
this game that, you know,in some ways, you know, when
they're not controlled, can be theopposite of that, you know, you
can you see a lot of instanceswhere it's not quite what it used to
be, right, whereas Tetris ispretty consistent over forty years. Yeah.
(25:30):
Yeah, and even though you know, you go back to the simplicity the
brand is, the branding is fairlysimplistic, you know, and even playing
it up you look at the imagery, they make the game look a little
more actiony than it actually is.But they've stuck with it. It is
it's kind of like, I mean, what are you gonna do? It's
dropping blocks and here it is,and I do I think of like the
(25:52):
the elements of the game and thesetup of the game. It's all it's
all kind of right there. Andeven the name itself, which I'm surprised
they stuck with, you know,at the beginning. But there are aspects
of it that you you know,the name Tetrominos I think are the name
of the pieces and stuff like that. They never kind of went into the
complexities of it very much. Theyjust kind of kept it very like simple
(26:15):
and straightforward and didn't give it acharacter, you know what I mean to
try to like punch it up oranything like that, which I appreciate.
In many games you need a tutorial. This game, you don't need a
tutorial. There is something you justplay, Yeah, something so gratifying.
(26:36):
That is gratifying because it is soagain simple to pick up and play that
you don't need anyone to tell youhow to play it or show you how
to play it. It takes youwhat one or two lines where you're like,
oh, yeah, that's not goingto work. Oh I see how
that is. Okay, I gotto fit this this okay, yeah,
yeah, two three lines. You'redone. The tutorial is right, You're
(27:00):
you're golden. Can You're starting todevelop your strategy. H Yeah. Whether
that's flawed or not, that remainsto be seen. But you know,
just ask Willis Gibson. I lovethat you equated his name to uh two
action stars. That's never never occurredto me, that's right there, it's
(27:22):
right there for the taking. Yeah. Uh, I'll just I think I
would leave the listeners with one littlephrase quote that came out of this whole
thing, and that's uh. WillisGibson's reaction when he won it was,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Yes, oh
my god, oh my god,I'm going to pass out. One of
(27:47):
the greatest reactions probably of anyone beatinga game I've ever heard. Well,
when you're the only person in theworld to ever do it, I think
it's probably an appropriate response. Yeah, I mean, you know, when
you're when you're screen freezes and yourscore reads nine, you just you know,
it's it's too good, too good. Well, we hope you got
(28:11):
something out of today's Tetris episode.Just remember, you know, if you
are suffering from pharmatronic, which isthe term that Jeffrey Goldsmith coined to describe
an electronic drug, you're suffering fromaddiction to pharmatronics, you can call a
hotline for that. I don't knowwhat that is. We didn't we didn't
(28:33):
look that part up, but youknow, there's there's got to be one
out there. Yeah, there's forsure. Just look it up in your
local Google directory. Hot Line isa great word. You don't hear a
lot. Yeah, your local hotline. Call your local hotline, tell them
about your problem. One eight hundredpharmatronic if that might be it right there.
(28:55):
Probably you know too many numbers,but yeah, the effect the game
has on your brain, that's thefact anyway. Yeah, so if you're
suffering from a Tetris addiction, acrippling Tetris addiction, now's the time to
call. Yeah, thanks for stoppingto listen to this podcast. Or maybe
you didn't stop. Maybe you're listeningwhile playing. That's very possible. That's
why we like the audio version ofthe podcast because you can you're not distracted,
(29:21):
you know, visually. Now youcan keep your pharmatronic problem going.
Why you listen, Yeah, yeah, unless you really want to listen to
the music. Do do Do DoDo Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Do do do do do? Wemind play nicely with the music. Mm
hmm Russian uh whatever whatever that musicis. All right, Well, that's
(29:42):
it for today's episode. You canfind current and past episodes of the podcast
on none other than speaking human dotcom. We'll be back in two weeks
with another episode of Speaking Human,Catch It in Humans Speaking Human. I'm
(30:10):
still stuck on the fact that you'resaying that a peanut, butter and jelly
sandwich won't win a sandwich contest.Can you do it again? Now,
(40:00):
that's the real question. I thinkanybody could do anything once that everybody else
has, I mean, anybody coulddo anything. Could Yeah, I mean
that's the keyword is could Was ita fluke? Was it a fluke?
Or is it really infinite? Well? I want to can you reproduce your
(40:24):
success? If you can reproduce yoursuccess, there's no question that you're the
best. You're saying reproduce a lot. If you can reproduce your success,
we know that you're the best.Stop telling the thirteen year old kid to
(40:45):
reproduce. Yeah, you know that'sinappropriate, inappropriate completely. Yeah. Would
(46:32):
you say the way all the piecesfell into place was kind of perfect?
Yeah? What do they call itwhen you get all four lines? I
think there's a there is, Ithink a term for that. But yeah,
they just kind of locked in anddo Yeah, that'll disappear
Speeding Human. Today on Speaking Human, we dropped the pieces in place to
unlock how the best selling video gameof all time continues to obsess players forty
years after its creation. Speaking Human. Welcome to Speaking Human, where we
(00:30):
simplify the world of marketing for humans. I'm Shad Calmly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber. What'sup, Shadow? What's going on?
Patrick? So you're fresh off watchingthe Apple TV movie Tetris, Right,
Yeah, I did. I watchedit all. It was an accomplishment,
I thought, so I'm saying it'sthe greatest accomplishment there is. Yeah,
(00:54):
you didn't finish that movie, right, I went, I got a little
more than halfway, which I thoughtwas in a publishment in and of itself.
What did you What did you learnfrom the movie about the challenge of
bringing that game to the world.I'll tell you what I learned. What
did you learn? I learned something? The most important thing I learned was
(01:14):
like in the first two minutes ofthe movie, and that's where the name
Tetris comes from. Mmm. Yeah, which is the combination of tetra,
which means four. All the blocksare a variation of four and tennis.
That was kind of the weird partwas the tennis part. I wouldn't have
guessed that. Yeah, that wasyou know, worth the price of admission
(01:37):
for me. Yeah, I hadno idea that it had anything to do
with tennis. Seemed like a stretch. I was like, why tennis?
But then when you watch the movie, realize the creator was one of his
favorite games. So of course that'show and that's how all great names are
created. You know, it's acombination of words by whoever creates them.
They're like, hey, let's createthis word. What is it? It's
(02:00):
podcast? Yeah, google tetris.They're basically just nonsense. But now it's
like there was never a time theynever were mm hmm. Yeah, that's
what it feels like. Tetris isdefinitely one of those words, whether it's
silly or not. Because it's avideo game, it's a vocabulary word.
(02:23):
I think most people know. Iwould think so too. I think if
you ask most people what's tetris,they probably know that in and of itself,
is really the accomplishment right to createsomething that becomes a common, everyday
household word. That's pretty yeah.I mean not only that, something that
they make a movie about the creationof mm hmm. Yeah. You know,
(02:45):
whether or not you like the movie, it was pretty interesting, you
know, learning about the challenges ofbringing that to the world in a way
that was as grandiose as it isright, because it's very possible that could
have died on the vine and notgotten seen or played by a lot of
people simply because it wasn't handled theright way. And a lot of it
(03:07):
I think was luck the way thatit sort of worked out, because it
could have gone the op is away. Yeah. So it is an
interesting story. It's got you know, it does have a real backstory to
it, and there is you seehow one decision another way and this thing
doesn't happen. Yeah, So thatthat part I think is really really interesting.
But then, you know, we'relooking at this game that is one
(03:29):
of the best selling games of alltime. It's been downloaded more than five
hundred million times on mobile devices.Authorized copies, just authorized copies have earned
close to a billion dollars in totalsales for something that was created didn't really
have any graphics when it was created, you know, and so addictive and
(03:52):
playable by so many ages and skillsets of players that it's a household term,
right, It's insane. Yeah.And what we see, you know,
mostly with video games, is theycome along, they're a big deal,
they burn brightly, and maybe theystick around for a decade, you
know, create a few different sequelsor variations or something like that, and
(04:14):
then they're kind of like fade away. That's the natural kind of way of
things. We're talking forty years,you know, four decades of this game
remaining pretty consistently popular, not reallychanging all that much, and people just
kind of knowing it and it's beinglike just this staple of the video game
world, you know, just thissomething that's like ingrained in pop culture.
(04:36):
Whether you played it, you know, back in the eighties, or you
play it now, or it's somethingyou like play on your phone. It's
it's stuck with us, and wetalk about this how ingrained this thing is.
There was this movie they made now, which is kind of the backstory.
In twenty fourteen, they announced plansfor a movie based on the game
(04:58):
itself. Mind you, Tetris isa game about falling blocks and clicking them
together. They were gonna make amovie about that somehow, not only we're
gonna gonna make a movie, butthe producer said it wouldn't be one film,
It's gonna be a trilogy. Said, the story we conceived is so
big, we're splitting it up intomultiple movies. People talking online about all
(05:21):
sorts of things. What is theactual narrative of this going to be about?
Are there gonna be giant talking shapes? The producer at that time said,
we're not gonna have blocks with feetrunning around the movie. But it's
great that people think. So that'sthe bar rather low. We never got
that movie. Obviously, we nevergot this trilogy. But what do you
think, you know, if you'reusing your kind of brain creatively, what
(05:44):
do you think a movie based onthe game Tetris would be about? What's
what's the plot there? What's yourplot? How would you make a movie
about Tetris? I think I wouldmake it about aliens and what are the
aliens doing? Well? One wouldthink they were playing Tetris? But I
think I think, you know,maybe this movie has something to do with
(06:09):
Tetris's sort of this like universal mathematicalcode, and you know, it's like
it's like human DNA, and whenyou unlock the code, you know,
something happens. Think of if you'reof our generation, shadden my generation.
If you're of our generation, dearlistener, think of not Flight of the
(06:32):
Navigator. It was the Last Starfighter. Remember the Last YEP and the Last
Starfighter. If you remember the playedthe video game. You played the Arcade
video game because you know, wedidn't have Nintendo then, so he played
the Arcade and the aliens they comefrom outer space and that's how they They
(06:56):
recruited starfighters, these guys who wouldfly these space jets. Essentially, so
if you beat the game or whatever, if you were really good at the
game, they would take you andyou would fight for this galactic I don't
know if it was a force,freedom force or something, you know,
alien species. Think of that andcombine those things and you think, okay,
(07:18):
kind of like that. You know, Tetris is this universal mathematical algorithm
and someone solves it and suddenly youknow there's this universe opening up to them,
kind of like the Matrix. Rightyeah, I think Matrix and Starve
the Last Starfighter. That's it rightthere. I mean, what a great
pitch. Who's not buying that?And it comes off the heels of the
(07:41):
Matrix trilogies which you know, ifyou're going to make a trilogy, you
pitch it with it's going to belike the Matrix but better. But with
the Last Starfighter. People be likewhat arcade games be Like, Yeah,
set in the eighties, because that'swhen Tetris came out. I like that.
I was thinking, you know,something along the same lines, where
(08:03):
Tetris is kind of like it's notthe plot, you know, because how
is it? How is it theplot? Yeah, that doesn't really I
mean maybe my tiny brain just can'twrap itself around that. But it's like
a part of the plot, youknow, it's integrated into the plot.
So I was thinking something like abillionaire video game inventor or something, and
(08:26):
that's like his lock, his fortuneslocked up behind Tetris. Oh so people
have to heist their way in bybeating Tetris, okay, to somehow to
get to his you know, somethingvaluable or his money something like that.
In order to get into his vault, they have to like beat different levels
of Tetris. Maybe they actually enlistthe kid who just beat you know,
(08:50):
who's the only person who ever beatTetris, that thirteen year old. Yeah,
so maybe some criminals grab that kid, force him to work with them,
or you know, not that kidhimself, but kid who is the
only person who's beat the game inthe world, make him help them get
into this billionaire his house who theyknow is locked up behind Tetris. Yeah,
and it's part of a three partmovie series of beating this Kid.
(09:15):
Yeah watch it, watch this kidplay Tetris for three movies. Yeah.
That's also brings us to a greatpoint that just recently the end of twenty
twenty three, this thirteen year oldboy, Willis Gibson became the first person
who advanced so far in the originalNintendo version of Tetris that the game froze,
which is essentially what they've coined asbeating Tetris. First person known person
(09:41):
to beat Tetris. It's pretty crazya thirteen year old. Yeah, it's
actually real crazy that nobody's ever donethis before. Mm hmmm. And it
seemed really easy for this kid.Yeah, he had like a real style
in which he played. He playedit on the original Nintendo controller, but
(10:01):
he would hold the controller at anangle and he was like playing it like
a almost like a guitar or something. It was really crazy the way he
would hit the controller probably more natural, and that's what helped him. But
yeah, crazy all this time.Is it true that he was created from
the DNA of Bruce Willis and MelGibson? How did you it is true?
(10:28):
I mean that explains why he canbeat anything instantly Willis Gibson, Well,
yeah, I mean makes sense.He's a lethal weapon of Hudson Hawk,
of Hudson Hawk. Yeah, Imean he made that Tetris game,
(10:48):
die Hard with a Vengeance. Yeah. I don't even know if we'd mentioned
we're talking about Tetris today. Didwe not talk about Tetris? We should
have mentioned. I mean, we'vetalked about Tetris, but I don't think
we've explicitly stated today's show is aboutTetris. Yeah, the game the legend
created in nineteen eighty five. Howmany years is that? That's almost forty
(11:11):
years, right, Yeah, it'salmost forty years. I think it's actually
created in nineteen eighty four, cameout in nineteen eighty five. Yeah,
so one of the most popular gamesof all time. That's to me,
that's pretty crazy, because you wouldthink with all of what we have today,
the complexity of games, you havethis very simplistic game, which is
(11:33):
timeless, right, it is timeless, just like the title of this podcast.
Now we have to use it.Well, now it's locked in.
I agree. And even when youmentioned it as like the best selling game
of all time or up there withthe best selling games of all time,
I think if you ask people what'sthe best selling game of all time,
(11:54):
I don't know if they would immediatelythink of Tetris. What would you say,
Like if if we weren't talking aboutand you didn't know, is there
any game that comes to mind thatyou would think, Yeah, that's probably
the most popular game. I'd probablythink of Minecraft or Fortnite, and maybe
that's recency bias, you know,But but like Super Mario Brothers or something
like that, then I would goto something else like that, but that
(12:16):
also seemed to have I would thinksomething more recent would sell more. M
Yeah, I see why you're goingthere for sure, Maybe like Grand Theft
Auto something, you know, oneof those games, one of those in
that series, something like that.Pac Man couldn't be pac Man, right,
I don't know what they have thosenumbers, but I wouldn't think so
(12:39):
because that when that initially, youknow, those initial systems came out.
I guess it's been around so longenough that it's sold repeatedly, you know,
like Tetris. Yeah, but inthe yeah, the and then the
versions of that, right, there'salways I guess that's up for debate,
whether or not, like you includemisspac Man and pac Man. Yeah.
(13:00):
Do you're saying with super Mario,people aren't buying the same super Mario,
you know, because they keep makingso many different ones. That also begs
the question of whether or not Tetris, because there are other versions of Tetris.
You know, there's like Tetris Blitzon my phone right now. You
know, there's they're not the originalTetris. Are they counting those? I
don't know. In that I wouldn'tthink so, But I don't know.
(13:24):
That's a good question. Who's keepingthese stats? Yeah, that's all.
It's all arbitrary. What about likeSimCity? Does that count? See?
This is why, like when Icompare it, I I naturally go back
to it kind of makes sense becauseTetris is super simple and it is anybody
(13:46):
could pick it up. This iskind of what made me see the genius
in it when I was watching themovie. Is that Yeah, I guess
I never really thought of it thatway. But that's what made that so
successful is that, like an oldperson can play this so easily. It's
like way easier than a crossword puzzle. You know, like an old old
person and a kid can pick itup and play it and they have the
(14:09):
same No, neither one of themhave an advantage, really, right,
Yeah, and that's one better.I'd say an alien could come down,
yeah, grab it and just startplaying and understand it. Well, that's
because it's a global mathematic code.Yeah, it's the premise of a trilogy,
(14:31):
so you know that that's actually true. But yeah, I know,
I totally agree. It's it's sosimplistic in nature that it's almost impossible to
not say that this is the choiceof a new generation. Another thing I'll
say about it, and this goes, you know, back to kind of
the most recent Tetris movie and thebig thing about it. I think you
(14:54):
will probably agree with this because youlived through this event. Tetris would not
be Tetris without the game boy,Yes, agreed. One of the super
cases of you know, as youwere kind of talking about right place,
right time, you know, Ikind of think to a much lesser degree,
but something like Angry Birds when thewhen the iPhone first started getting popular.
(15:18):
You know, it's just you happento be there and get on the
train as it was leaving the stationTetris when you had the Game Boy.
I don't know if people would havenecessarily played that game if it was just
a Nintendo game, you know,they probably would have found it to some
extent, but the fact that itwas on the game way, like it
was so perfect for the Game Boy. They were such like a great match.
(15:39):
I don't know that there was abetter Game Boy game, you know,
something that was more made for that. The match of media and medium
was like perfect there that you couldjust sit there and play that game on
there forever. It was way betterthan the Super Mario Brothers game on the
Tetris. Yeah, yeah, itwas. It was like it was made
(16:00):
for it, right, and thecircumstances that led to it becoming such a
household item really in the Western worldmore than anything, right, it's the
thing that introduced it to us inAmerica to a degree that it I mean
everyone had one, right, Everyonewas a fighting for these game systems that
(16:22):
were handheld as well as playing thisgame we probably shouldn't have known about because
it was from somewhere where it wasvery difficult to get out for a variety
of reasons. You know, we'retalking about the Soviet Union at the time,
so yeah, I mean one ofthose serendipitous things that sort of happened
caused a global phenomenon of sorts.The pieces fell into place, and I
(16:45):
can even still picture the Game Boysort of cover art of Tetris where they
kind of make it look super exciting. You know, there's like these trails
of the blocks as they're falling,which looks through space again space. Maybe
that fits your your space narrative.Yeah, well, and the Game Boy
version, I came to find out, is one of the best selling games
(17:08):
of all time, with more thanthirty five million copies sold, So that
in and of itself, you knowyou're talking about that's a really big feat.
You know, we were talking aboutthis before we even did this podcast,
and you're like, you have thesegames like Fortnite like you mentioned,
or Call of Duty or Grand TheftAuto, all these newer games that you
(17:29):
would think would be far more onelucrative but also selling copies. You would
think that they would have sold asmany copies, but they haven't. I
wonder, do you know what theother best selling game Boy games are beyond
Mario. I'm just wondering, dowe even remember any of these? Excite
Bike Excite Bike for game Boy?I don't know. Is this a personal
(17:52):
pick? Yeah? I loved thatgame when I was a kid. I
never played the game Boy version ofthat game. Yeah, something about Excite
Bike. Man, I don't knowwhat it was about that game. Uh,
you're just excited for bikes, Ithink, you know, I mean
anything that you could play while youwere at your grandparents' house. Yeah,
yeah, I mean bored out ofyour mind at whatever event it is,
(18:17):
car ride, you name it.You know. It was really the first.
There's the phone before the phone.Yeah, it was the first,
and it changed the world for preteenkids who no longer had to sit board
at any relative's house. Uh huh. They had a little screen to stare
at. They could take their videogames with them. It was the very
(18:38):
first time when you know, parentswere like, you're you're gonna make yourself
dumb looking at that screen all thetime. It wasn't a very I think
they were always saying that about videogames, right, well, television yeah,
well, television, then musicians,yeah, and then you know,
handheld nunce phones, falls pat youknow one. I think last thing I'll
(19:02):
kind of say about hit on withTetris and why it kind of speaks to
us as humans, the innate humandesire for order. What is tetris?
All you're doing is trying to putthings in order, you know, you're
trying to clean up the mess,get things straight, get those clean lines.
I think that's sort of a bigreason it had this kind of cultural
(19:26):
impact even now. I know whenI'm like, you know, trying to
get all our bags in the carfor vacation, I'll, you know,
reference it as like tetrising, yeah, or playing a game of Tetris.
You know, that's kind of likeit's lived on in that sort of way
too. So I think it kindof hits on something there, Like there's
a a good feeling when you getthose rows into perfect order, when you
(19:48):
get that kind of straight line ontop and knock those four rows down,
there's this endorphin, yeah, serotonin, something something shooting now there. Yeah.
As a matter of fact, Iwas reading this thing where in researching
this, I guess in the studiesof Tetris, they've called it the Tetris
effect, Like it's actually a thingwhere the way that it's sort of people's
(20:15):
brains react to this, right,it's like a drug. It is like
a drug and video games, youknow, in this like concert rewarding system.
I mean, the stuff that theytalk about today on games. The
Tetris is really the beginning of that, I think, and the way that
our brains sort of react to therewards that it gives you, you know,
(20:38):
when when you make a line disappear, all those things make you want
to keep playing it. It's addictive. It is addictive. It occupies a
really interesting space though, I thinkin that I'll say it's one of these
everybody really likes it. I don'tknow if anybody really loves it. I
(20:59):
don't know if you ask even atthe time when it was out, you
know, I don't know if kidson the playground were talking about Tetris.
To me, is kind of likethe peanut, butter and jelly sandwich.
It's never gonna win a sandwich contest. Yeah, but everybody likes it,
you know what I mean. It'sgonna be hard for you to find people
who are like, no, notfor me, not into it at all.
(21:22):
So it's got a very high rating, you know what I mean,
But I don't know how much peopleare like, that's my favorite, that's
my favorite game of all time.A flip side of that, though,
and a really interesting flip side ofthat, if you were stuck on a
desert island, it might be thegame you want with you. Well,
yeah, true, true, youknow. So it's one of those things
if you're choosing, if you're like, what's your favorite game of all time,
(21:45):
You're probably gonna kick the game thatgives you, like the biggest high.
I don't know that Tetris gives youthe biggest high, but Tetris is
probably the game you can keep playingthe longest and get the most out of.
Yeah, you know, why doyou think this game has lived on
past something like a pac Man,you know, or you can think of
like a whole bunch of other games. Even Mario is obviously living on,
but in a different way that itkeeps producing new games. Tetris is kind
(22:07):
of this living on as the samething as it always was. It's kind
of the kind of the beauty ofit. And also you're right, I
mean, it's not like it's notfresh and new. You see it being
referenced in people talking about its popularity. I can say, just from my
own personal experience, I have Tetrison my phone right. It is one
(22:32):
of those games where I've found,as I've gotten older, I need the
game that I can just pick upand play for a minute and then put
it down and go about my day, Like I just need that little kind
of take me away from this momentin time. Or you're super bored,
you're waiting in the doctor's office orwhatever it is, and you can just
hit a few buttons, get afew lines, make them disappear, get
(22:55):
your fix, and then go aboutwhat you're doing, you know. And
it is that kind of game.Therefore, you know, it might be
the perfect game in this world thatwe live in today, right where everybody
has a phone. Like, youdon't need a game boy, right,
you don't need a piece of technologylike a game boy or whatever that is,
(23:17):
you know, a switch to playthis thing kind of cool. Also,
I'll say it's on sixty five platforms, over sixty five platforms, so
no matter where you want to getit, you can get it, And
that might work for sixty five platforms, there's apparently there, I mean over
time. I'm sure that's over time, okay, But you know that might
(23:38):
also play to what you're saying.I think the subtext of what you're saying
is is it really as popular?And I think when something is as saturated
with something like Tetris that you know, it's like there's not a lot of
demand for it because the supply isso heavy. So maybe that's why it's
not as unted or desired as much. So I you know, the other
(24:03):
thing I would probably just say,like you know, if I was just
thinking about unique things about Tetris,is this and what made us really want
to talk about this on the podcastis this idea of a brand, right,
a brand that is very memorable,and within that brand you have things
(24:25):
like the music, which is supermemorable. Those things from a marketing angle,
I mean cannot be understated. Theyreally can't. I mean, maybe
it wasn't completely by design initially,right, like how they branded this.
I think Nintendo probably had a bigrole in that and making this you know,
(24:45):
appealing graphically visually to sell it withthe game Boy maybe, but beyond
that, you know, the brandit's been it's been managed well, I'll
say that. You know, Ithink over time they've put things in place
that have sort of like controlled thebrand a bit. And whether or not
(25:07):
you see what's happening behind the scenes, I think it has given legs to
this game that, you know,in some ways, you know, when
they're not controlled, can be theopposite of that, you know, you
can you see a lot of instanceswhere it's not quite what it used to
be, right, whereas Tetris ispretty consistent over forty years. Yeah.
(25:30):
Yeah, and even though you know, you go back to the simplicity the
brand is, the branding is fairlysimplistic, you know, and even playing
it up you look at the imagery, they make the game look a little
more actiony than it actually is.But they've stuck with it. It is
it's kind of like, I mean, what are you gonna do? It's
dropping blocks and here it is,and I do I think of like the
(25:52):
the elements of the game and thesetup of the game. It's all it's
all kind of right there. Andeven the name itself, which I'm surprised
they stuck with, you know,at the beginning. But there are aspects
of it that you you know,the name Tetrominos I think are the name
of the pieces and stuff like that. They never kind of went into the
complexities of it very much. Theyjust kind of kept it very like simple
(26:15):
and straightforward and didn't give it acharacter, you know what I mean to
try to like punch it up oranything like that, which I appreciate.
In many games you need a tutorial. This game, you don't need a
tutorial. There is something you justplay, Yeah, something so gratifying.
(26:36):
That is gratifying because it is soagain simple to pick up and play that
you don't need anyone to tell youhow to play it or show you how
to play it. It takes youwhat one or two lines where you're like,
oh, yeah, that's not goingto work. Oh I see how
that is. Okay, I gotto fit this this okay, yeah,
yeah, two three lines. You'redone. The tutorial is right, You're
(27:00):
you're golden. Can You're starting todevelop your strategy. H Yeah. Whether
that's flawed or not, that remainsto be seen. But you know,
just ask Willis Gibson. I lovethat you equated his name to uh two
action stars. That's never never occurredto me, that's right there, it's
(27:22):
right there for the taking. Yeah. Uh, I'll just I think I
would leave the listeners with one littlephrase quote that came out of this whole
thing, and that's uh. WillisGibson's reaction when he won it was,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Yes, oh
my god, oh my god,I'm going to pass out. One of
(27:47):
the greatest reactions probably of anyone beatinga game I've ever heard. Well,
when you're the only person in theworld to ever do it, I think
it's probably an appropriate response. Yeah, I mean, you know, when
you're when you're screen freezes and yourscore reads nine, you just you know,
it's it's too good, too good. Well, we hope you got
(28:11):
something out of today's Tetris episode.Just remember, you know, if you
are suffering from pharmatronic, which isthe term that Jeffrey Goldsmith coined to describe
an electronic drug, you're suffering fromaddiction to pharmatronics, you can call a
hotline for that. I don't knowwhat that is. We didn't we didn't
(28:33):
look that part up, but youknow, there's there's got to be one
out there. Yeah, there's forsure. Just look it up in your
local Google directory. Hot Line isa great word. You don't hear a
lot. Yeah, your local hotline. Call your local hotline, tell them
about your problem. One eight hundredpharmatronic if that might be it right there.
(28:55):
Probably you know too many numbers,but yeah, the effect the game
has on your brain, that's thefact anyway. Yeah, so if you're
suffering from a Tetris addiction, acrippling Tetris addiction, now's the time to
call. Yeah, thanks for stoppingto listen to this podcast. Or maybe
you didn't stop. Maybe you're listeningwhile playing. That's very possible. That's
why we like the audio version ofthe podcast because you can you're not distracted,
(29:21):
you know, visually. Now youcan keep your pharmatronic problem going.
Why you listen, Yeah, yeah, unless you really want to listen to
the music. Do do Do DoDo Do Do Do Do Do Do Do
Do do do do do? Wemind play nicely with the music. Mm
hmm Russian uh whatever whatever that musicis. All right, Well, that's
(29:42):
it for today's episode. You canfind current and past episodes of the podcast
on none other than speaking human dotcom. We'll be back in two weeks
with another episode of Speaking Human,Catch It in Humans Speaking Human. I'm
(30:10):
still stuck on the fact that you'resaying that a peanut, butter and jelly
sandwich won't win a sandwich contest.Can you do it again? Now,
(40:00):
that's the real question. I thinkanybody could do anything once that everybody else
has, I mean, anybody coulddo anything. Could Yeah, I mean
that's the keyword is could Was ita fluke? Was it a fluke?
Or is it really infinite? Well? I want to can you reproduce your
(40:24):
success? If you can reproduce yoursuccess, there's no question that you're the
best. You're saying reproduce a lot. If you can reproduce your success,
we know that you're the best.Stop telling the thirteen year old kid to
(40:45):
reproduce. Yeah, you know that'sinappropriate, inappropriate completely. Yeah. Would
(46:32):
you say the way all the piecesfell into place was kind of perfect?
Yeah? What do they call itwhen you get all four lines? I
think there's a there is, Ithink a term for that. But yeah,
they just kind of locked in anddo Yeah, that'll disappear
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