Tetris Has Passed 100 Million Paid Downloads Since 2005 - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 21 January 2010 / 4,479 Views

Selling 30 million copies on the Game Boy after its initial release in 1989 was only the beginning. Alexy Pajitnov's block-dropping puzzle game has become a global obsession on just about anything with a screen, including game consoles, handhelds, phones, the internet, and the iPhone. But it's the mobile phone market where the success of Tetris has really started accelerating. Since its first release on mobile phones in 2005 (over 64,000 different phones in 60 countries as of this writing), Tetris has been purchased over 100,000,000 times.

We're not sure how much money this has netted Blue Planet Software and EA Mobile, the current mobile publisher since 2006. But the cheapest version of Tetris through EA Mobile is $1.99 USD and the most expensive at the moment is the $4.99 USD version for the iPhone. None of this even includes the recent versions of Tetris on game-dedicated consoles, such as 2009's Tetris on PSN, 2008's Tetris Party on WiiWare, and 2007's Tetris Splash on XBL. Through cell phones alone Tetris has made somewhere between $200 million and $500 million since 2005. Not too shabby for a game Pajitnov slapped together at work in 1984.

Inspiring everything from ice cube trays to vandalism, Tetris is definitely here to stay as a pop culture phenomenon.

EA Mobile and Blue Planet Software plan to formally announce this milestone today in Montreal.

Source: Associated Press

16 Comments

Kai Master (on 23 January 2010)

that's only 1k5/phone on average...

moondeep (on 22 January 2010)

Congrats Tetris! One of the all-time greatest casual games.

AnthonyW86 (on 22 January 2010)

So... best selling game of all time? Or at least best selling franchise.

vic_viper (on 22 January 2010)

@ Illmaticv3: Even with this EA is bleeding millions each quarter.

vic_viper (on 22 January 2010)

@ Hephaestos: No, I don't like Tetris, it's boring and monotonous and I don't care how many millions of the proletariate masses downloaded it. I will give it this though: Tetris > intestinal polyps.

Azelover (on 22 January 2010)

@ Carl2291 actually Wii Sports outsold Tetris's initial social phenomenon on the Gameboy, which was at 30 million.

I'm sure when Wii Sports becomes older and eventually reaches its postage stamp format many years from now, it could probably then outsell Tetris's total sales.

Azelover (on 22 January 2010)

I think postage stamps have sold billions.

That said well done to Tetris, it's been a very iconic and important piece of software. Downloadable games in general as sales records bore me however.

I'm sure next month we'll have a 1 cent downloadable that sells trillions to multiple devices per person. Obviously the price reductions make records not hold anymore, that definitely makes it not fun to acknowledge, and frankly pointless to begin with.

I'm starting to think revenue is a better metric. I'm not a fan of treating gaming like hollywood but this is one thing I believe they got partly right.

Hephaestos (on 22 January 2010)

tetris > at all games

I have yet to find someone say "I don't like this game".
(you'll have the I don't like games of people who don't want to even try games, but not targetted at this specific one...).

And no, tetris doesn't cost anything to make... heck computer science classes often have you program a tetris game as homework!