Game over. I'm Rebecca Leib.

I'm Jison Horton, and this is Ghost Town.

You'll need a tattoo shop on the wall.

T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the puzzle-based video game Tetris took America and eventually

the rest of the world by storm. However, the history of one of Russia's finest exports has a very

dark, complex, and deadly history. We are talking about the Tetris murders. I've been playing a lot of

Tetris lately so I cannot wait to hear what you have to say. But before we get to that, in case you

need a refresher on Tetris and the history of Tetris, which is very interesting in a separate episode,

that's what it deserves. It goes back to 1984, Cold War Russia, and went through many iterations

before. It found its way in the Gameboys and Hearts of Millions. Absolutely. How can you talk

about video games without talking about Tetris and the history of video games? And it's not a game

that people like, oh, I remember when people used to play that. It's still a pretty iconic. I played

it today. In 1984, Moscow, Russian scientists Alexey Pagetinoff developed the first version of

Tetris on an electronic 60 terminal computer while working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

I've never heard of an electronic 60. Tetris was released on June 14, 1989 and has sold more than

43 million copies worldwide. And that's just Gameboys where it's most popular and most known,

but as many iterations and between 1984 and 1989, there was a lot of lawsuits and who owned what

and it coming out of Russia as like a Russian export. Yeah. Who owns it? A lot of lawsuits. And

that's a whole other story. Tetris has a very interesting history. And I feel like I think there's

going to be an Apple TV TV show or movie coming out. I don't know if it's going to be about Vladimir

Polhilko, who's who we're talking about today, the co-founder and co-creator of Tetris.

...