No sh*t, Tetris guy. You knew that the silly physics flinger was on the way out when you started seeing too much branded merchandise at the checkout stand at the grocery store. I saw a senior citizen with an Angry Birds shirt on the other day. When I saw that I did that Jackie Chan hands-open-at-sides-of-head thing, and then walked it off, reminding myself that this is something that won’t last. Angry Birds will never become a timeless game like Tetris has.
Still, Tetris dude, Henk Rogers, manager of The Tetris Company, is kind of a dick* about it.
“Again I like to compare it to a sport, in the beginning it’s an activity, like golf was an activity, then it became a sport. I think once people have played it more than 20 or 25 years you can say it’s here to stay, it’s a sport, it’s no longer a fad, Rogers told Industry Gamers in an interview. “Angry Birds is cute and everybody plays it for a while but they get burned out and move on and they will play another game.”
Our game is older and better, he says:
“But Tetris is like Happy Birthday, it keeps on going. Everybody else has games that come and go, they make the hit parade, but these are all temporary. You have to work really hard to get your unknown game to be #1, but when we re-released Tetris it became #1 even though we didn’t do any marketing. We have an unfair advantage, I gotta say. I’d rather have the goose that lays the golden egg.”
Jealous, bro?
* – I can be a dick about it. He can’t.
