Jun 8, 2010 0
Tetris Brand to Expand through Merchandise Licensing Ventures
Tetris is my favorite game of all time. I play it in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, on the train, in restaurants waiting for my food to be served (which is probably a bit rude), on my lunch break, and any other time I have more than two idle minutes in my day. Or at least I did, until a water bottle exploded onto my Nintendo DS and I found out video games aren’t great swimmers. Anyone want to contribute to my new DS fund?
Anyway, you can imagine why this news, just in from Licensing Show, is pretty freakin’ awesome, at least to me.
Blue Planet Software, Inc., the company that manages the exclusive licensing rights to the Tetris brand, today announced that the company will be expanding the Tetris brand into merchandise licensing. The company madethe announcement from its debut appearance at Licensing Show with Licensing Works!
Created in 1984 by Russian-born mathematician Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris has become a success model for the gaming industry. Over its 25-year history, the Tetris game has been sold on almost every gaming platform and has been translated into more than 50 languages in over 50 countries. Currently, the Tetris game is available on over 30 platforms—from handheld games to computers to mobile phones to iPads—and Guinness World Records recently named Tetris one of the top 50 console games of all time.
The Tetris brand kicked off its 25th anniversary on June 6, 2009 with a media campaign that reached more than 1 billion impressions from coverage in over 60 countries. Google even changed its home page around the world and in every time zone to honor the gaming legend’s “birthday.” In addition, the game recently surpassed 100 million paid mobile downloads, making it the most popular mobile game of all time. The announcement was made with licensee EA Mobile in January of this year.
By expanding into merchandise licensing, the company hopes to broaden its demographic reach and further solidify brand awareness.
Tetris Holding, LLC is the owner of Tetris rights worldwide and The Tetris Company, LLC is its exclusive licensee. The Tetris Company, through its agent Blue Planet Software, Inc., licenses and manages the Tetris intellectual property and franchise worldwide. Today, Blue Planet Software continues to work with licensees to deliver top quality Tetris products that are relevant, fun, and challenging for its millions of players.
For the latest information about the Tetris brand and Tetris products, check out the website.
Here’s a video of the original Tetris on Nintendo Gameboy. The video is guaranteed to 1) make you feel really old, if you used to play on this version, as I did, and 2) get that awesome Tetris song stuck in your head. Enjoy!
–Jennifer Sinclair