本文选自《新东方英语》的博客，点击查看博客原文

　　25年前，俄罗斯方块这款“简单”而迷人的游戏横空出世。四分之一个世纪过去了，它的魅力却没有因岁月的流失而减退。时至今日仍有各种各样的研究机构围绕它展开相关的研究，甚至哥伦比亚大学的硕士研究生论文已经得出结论：人们无法最终赢得俄罗斯方块！下面，就让我们来看看这款老少咸宜、男女同爱的经典游戏为何能够长兴不衰？它又是如何被那个聪明的俄罗斯人发明的呢？

　　When Alexey Pajitnov put the finishing touches on Tetris 25 years ago Saturday, he had no way of knowing his modest videogame would become Russia’s most entertaining export. Yet June 6, 1984, has become a landmark date in the history of videogames: That’s the day the then-29-year-old computer programmer completed his first playable version of the fiendishly addictive game that would launch a thousand clones。

　　What Made Tetris Different?

　　The game was graphically elegant and easy to grok: To play, you arranged seven different kinds of falling blocks into a tower without letting them pile too high. The game was so straightforward and simple that anybody could pick it up, yet as play progressed Tetris became more and more challenging. The game’s simplicity and appeal has made it the archetypal videogame: referenced in popular culture, studied by scientists and still wildly popular。

　　Tetris was unlike any other videogame, mostly because it was (and still is) played by as many women as men, as many adults as children. More than 125 million copies have been sold so far on more than 50 different gaming platforms, which Guinness World Records recognizes as the most versions of any single videogame。

　　The First Version of Tetris

　　At the Academy, Pajitnov’s work involved computer science research like artificial intelligence and speech recognition. In his spare time, he loved to play with puzzles and math riddles. When his department got a new Elektronika 60 computer, a Russian clone of the PDP-11 , he began to create computer game versions of several of his puzzles。

　　Since the Elektronika couldn’t display graphics, Tetris’ tetromino pieces had to be created out of text brackets. But even in this primitive form, Pajitnov found that the game was already tons of fun. Along with some programmer friends, Pajitnov soon began work porting the game to the MS-DOS platform. This version of Tetris spread like wildfire around the world on copied floppy disks, catching the attention of many game publishers。

　　After a convoluted series of legal machinations, Nintendo successfully negotiated with the Soviets and emerged with the worldwide rights to create handheld and console versions of the game. The Game Boy version alone sold 35 million copies。

　　Tetris Today

　　Everyone’s mom swiped their Game Boy to play Tetris. It was so appealing to women, says Pajitnov, because it was a creative, constructive game developed when every other game was about destruction. “You take the chaos of these random pieces and try to build something reasonable out of it,” he says. “Most of the videogames, shooting games, are about destroying something. And they don’t appreciate violence as much as we boys do, you know?”

　　Once the Soviet Union collapsed and the rights to Tetris reverted back to Pajitnov, he formed The Tetris Company with his friend Henk Rogers. Rogers’ business acumen kept the Tetris name so bankable. The company’s latest venture is Tetris Online, which it says is played 1 million times a day. “It’s not a fad,” Rogers says. “Tetris today is bigger than it’s ever been. It’s outlasted every other game in the computer industry. It shows no sign of abating。”

　　As the game became more and more popular, it attracted all sorts of attention. A study this year at University of Oxford found that playing Tetris could reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And a 1991 University of California study found major differences in players’ brain activity at various stages of Tetris mastery. “The good players have almost a calm brain, but the beginners have very excited brains,” says Pajitnov。

　　Tetris’ success caused a flood of copycats, launching the puzzle-game genre. But nothing has ever been as appealing as the original, which causes Pajitnov, lover of games and riddles, a good deal of consternation。

　　Not even the semi-retired Pajitnov has been able to create another game that captured the appeal of his big hit. But he has learned not to underestimate the casual audience. “People don’t realize that ‘simple’ doesn’t mean primitive,” he says. Then again, maybe designing the perfect videogame is all about luck. “I tried to put some science into game design, but later I understood that it is just a magic art,” Pajitnov says with a chuckle。

　　25年前的一个周六，当阿列克谢·帕基特诺夫敲完俄罗斯方块游戏程序的最后几个代码时，他根本想不到这个不起眼的视频游戏将成为俄罗斯最引人入胜的出口产品。但是，1984年6月6日已经成为视频游戏史上一个具有里程碑意义的日子：那天，这位时年29岁的计算机程序员完成了这款极易上瘾的游戏的最初版本，这款游戏随后将催生数以千计的克隆产品。

　　与众不同

　　这款游戏图形优雅、易于理解：游戏时，你要把不断落下的七种不同的方块垒成一个塔，同时不要垒得太高。这款游戏如此直接、简单，每个人都能很快上手，不过，随着游戏的进行，俄罗斯方块会变得越来越富有挑战。这款游戏的简单和魅力使其变成了视频游戏的典范：在流行文化中被频频提及，科学家对其进行研究，时至今日仍广为流行。

　　俄罗斯方块和其他视频游戏不同，主要是因为它的玩家中男女老少一样多，这一情况在过去和现在都不曾改变。这款游戏迄今为止已通过50种不同的游戏平台被售出了超过1.25亿件，被吉尼斯世界记录载为单款游戏销量之最。

　　帕基特诺夫拿回俄罗斯方块的产权后负责管理的俄罗斯方块公司称，俄罗斯方块占美国所有已售移动游戏的比例足有10%。

　　俄罗斯方块的诞生

　　在科学院，帕基特诺夫的工作是包括诸如人工智能和语言识别的计算机科学研究。在业余时间，他喜欢玩拼图和数迷游戏。当他的部门获得一台新的Elektronika 60电脑 (俄国仿制PDP-11的产品) 时，他开始为他玩的几款拼图游戏设计电脑游戏版本。

　　因为Elektronika电脑不能显示图形，俄罗斯方块的四格拼板只能用字符串来构造。不过即使在这种原始状态，帕基特诺夫就已发现这个游戏的无穷乐趣。帕基特诺夫和他的一些程序员朋友很快开始将游戏移植到MS-DOS平台上。这一版本的俄罗斯方块通过软盘拷贝以野火燎原之势在全世界风行开来，引起了很多游戏发行商的关注。

　　经过一系列法律上错综复杂的勾心斗角，任天堂成功地与苏联人达成协议，获得了在全球发行该游戏掌上机和游戏机版本的权利。仅“游戏小子”版本就售出了3,500万件。

　　方兴未艾

　　所有的妈妈都使劲儿按着“游戏小子”玩俄罗斯方块。帕基特诺夫说，它对女性非常有吸引力，因为它是一个具有创造性和建设性的游戏，而所有其他游戏的主题都是破坏。“你拿到一些混乱无序的方块，然后试图用其构造出一些合理的东西，”他说，“大部分视频游戏——比如射击游戏——的主题都是破坏某些东西。而你知道，她们可不像我们男孩子那样喜欢暴力。”

　　苏联一解体，俄罗斯方块的所有权回归帕基特诺夫，他立即和他的朋友亨克？罗杰斯一起组建了俄罗斯方块公司。罗杰斯的商业智慧使得俄罗斯方块的品牌身价不菲。公司最新的举动是推出了“网络版俄罗斯方块”，据称每天有100万人次上线游戏。“它可不是昙花一现，”罗杰斯说，“如今俄罗斯方块比以往任何时候都强大。它比计算机行业中任何其他游戏的寿命都要长，而且没有衰退的迹象。”

　　随着游戏越来越受欢迎，它吸引了不同方面的注意力。牛津大学今年的一项研究发现，俄罗斯方块可以减轻创伤后精神紧张性障碍的症状。加利福尼亚大学1991年的一项研究发现，不同水平的俄罗斯方块玩家的大脑活动存在较大差异。 “高级玩家大都头脑冷静，而入门玩家的头脑则非常兴奋” ，帕基特诺夫说。

　　俄罗斯方块的成功引发了一股跟风热潮，开创了拼图游戏这一游戏种类。但是其他游戏都没有俄罗斯方块吸引人，这使帕基特诺夫这个游戏和解迷爱好者相当吃惊。

　　甚至连处于半退休状态的帕基特诺夫也无法再创造出一款能与其热门之作媲美的游戏了。但是他已意识到不可低估随便玩玩儿的人。他说，“人们没有意识到，‘简单’并不意味着粗糙。”此外，也许设计出完美的视频游戏还是要凭运气。帕基特诺夫轻声笑着说道：“我曾试图在游戏设计中加入一些科学的成分，但后来我明白了，游戏就是一种神奇的艺术。”