BBC Documentaries

Tetris: From Russia With Love (2004x1)

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Tetris is a computer game, but it behaves like a virus. Whoever comes into contact with it is gripped by its simplicity. Yet this simplicity belies a complex psychological power that prompted a global battle for financial rights every bit as gripping as the game itself. This film charts the birth of this most original of puzzles, from the hands of a computer programmer at Moscow's Academy of Science to its position as a multi-billion-dollar game. This is a story of communists playing at capitalism in a game that involved Robert Maxwell and intimidation from the heart of the Soviet state.