Tetris Turned 30 – Here Are 5 Things You Might Not Know About the Game [VIDEO]

I just found out today that back in June Tetris celebrated 30 years. I don't need to explain to you what an addicting game this is. Between Tetris, Super Mario Bros. 3 and pinball, I might have missed a lot of my freshman year in college. 

Here are 5 facts I learned about the game:

1. Russian Alexey Pajitnov created the game in 1984 while working at the computer center at the Academy of Science in Moscow but got no money for its creation, giving the rights to the Soviet Union for 10 years. He only started getting royalties in 1996.

2. The Tetris theme music is called "Korobeiniki," a Russian folk song from the 19th century. Here's someone playing the theme in an arcade on a piano that looks like a pinball machine just because they can.

3. Atari had the rights to make the Tetris coin-op arcade game in 1988 and then made an unlicensed version for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo sued Atari since they had the rights for all consoles and Atari's version for the NES was taken off the shelves after just four weeks. Less than 100,000 copies were sold and the Atari version, under the name Tengen, is a collectible now.

4. Tetris is the best selling game for the original Nintendo GameBoy selling 35 million copies. Second place Super Mario Land wasn't even close with 18 million. Why did it do so well? Not just because it's a great game to take with you, but it came with every GameBoy sold.

5. The creator of the game moved to the US and with two others, created The Tetris Company which holds the rights to this day. He's very wealthy now.