The Tetris Company
| |
| Founded | June, 1996 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bellevue, Washington |
| Key people | Henk Rogers (Founder) Alexey Pajitnov (Founder) |
| Website | tetris.com |
The Tetris Company, or TTC, is the exclusive licensee for the Tetris brand. Licensed games would start to follow a Tetris Guideline maintained by Blue Planet Software and include TTC's "Authentic Tetris Game" seal.
History
In 1996 the rights to Tetris that Alexey Pajitnov had granted to Elorg expired. When the Blue Planet Software was founded, negotiations were made with Alexey Pajitnov to form a new company with existing Tetris IP and trademark owner Elorg[1]. The two companies became 50/50 owners of The Tetris Company. On January 21, 2005, ELORG's share was sold to Henk Rogers for 15 million dollars. The rights to Tetris were put in a new company called Tetris Holding, owned 50/50 by Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov.
Copyright and IP enforcement
Since the late 1990s, The Tetris Company has sent cease and desist letters to developers of unlicensed Tetris clones. They claim that such versions of Tetris violate copyright and infringe on their trademark.[2]
In 2012, The Tetris Company sued Xio Interactive, claiming their Tetris clone Mino infringed on several copyrightable elements, such as the shapes of the blocks and the matrix size.[3]
In 2014, Casey Pelkey (then Vice President and Marketing of Tetris Online, Inc.) stated that they take down "counterfeit Tetris" games if they are not well received by the community:
It would be dishonest to say Tetris hasn't been copied many times over. So, the point here is is that The Tetris Company is well aware of where counterfeit Tetris products happen, but they've created such a high standard for the way that the Tetris game works is that they can always feel rest assured that the games that are being made out there that are not authentic Tetris do not live up to the standards that the fans of Tetris expect, and that's really why the Tetris brand as it's been presented as an official brand has outlasted the competition.— Casey Pelkey[4]
An example to show this can be shown with two Steam games, TETRUX: Online and Tetra Online .
In the case of TETRUX: Online, the game was well received. Despite being a paid game, it has an overall review of "Very Positive," and players liked the game as it reminded them of older games like Tetris (Game Boy) (example). Because of the positive reception, the game is still accessible to play on the Steam Store.
On the other hand, the game Tetra Online was not as well received. Upon release, players left negative reviews on the game, stating that other fangames (such as TETR.IO and Jstris) were more polished as well as having better handling.[5][6] These reviews are brought the game's overall rating to "Mixed," which led to The Tetris Company sending an DMCA notice to the game's developers 9 days after its release.
See also
External links
- Tetris.com - Official website
References
- Sheffield, Brandon. "Alexey Pajitnov, Master of Shapes." Game Developer Sep. 2006: 10 .
- ↑ Guttman, Monika "Putting the puzzle pieces back together: Alexey Pajitnov has a new game plan for Tetris.". U.S. News & World Report. 1996-06-10. Archived from the original on 2001-05-03. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
- ↑ Bed "The Tetris Company's Activities". 2000-10-27. Archived from the original on 2002-10-13. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
- ↑ Brown, Mark "US judge declares Tetris clone 'infringing'". 2012-06-20. Retrieved 2012-07-01.
- ↑ GameDaily Connect "Building a Pop Culture Phenomenon: 30 Years of Tetris | Casey PELKEY". 2014-08-21. Retrieved .
- ↑ salty "This review is always subject to change as the game literally just came out". Steam Community. November 30, 2020. Retrieved .
- ↑ Apalapan "Tetra Online is free, and yet there are better options.". Steam Community. December 1, 2020. Retrieved .