The Tetris Effect Audiobook By Dan Ackerman cover art

The Tetris Effect

The Game That Hypnotized the World

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Tetris Effect

By: Dan Ackerman
Narrated by: Dan Ackerman
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $22.49

Buy for $22.49

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

Tetris is perhaps the most instantly recognizable, most popular video game ever made. But the fascinating story of its origins is lesser known. How did an obscure Soviet programmer working on frail, antiquated computers create a product that has earned nearly $1 billion in sales? How did an inspired makeshift game turn into a worldwide sensation that has been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, inspired a Hollywood movie, and been played in outer space?

In this surprising trivia-filled audiobook, tech reporter Dan Ackerman describes how, as a teenager behind the Iron Curtain, Alexey Pajitnov was struck with inspiration, then meticulously worked for years to bring the game he had envisioned to life. Ackerman shows how Tetris worked its way first through Pajitnov's office and then out into the world, entrancing player after player with its hypnotic shapes. Then, tracing the stories of the British, American, and Japanese moguls who raced each other for the rights, Ackerman recounts the game's complex and improbable path to global success.

The Tetris Effect is an homage to both creator and creation and a perfect gift for anyone who's ever played the game - which is to say, everyone.

©2016 Dan Ackerman (P)2016 Hachette Audio Engineering Programming & Software Development Technology Programming Game Software Software Development Imperial Japan
Fascinating History • Great Story • Convoluted Tale • Engaging Content
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
I absolutely loved this book! I recommend it to anyone who is interested in business, gaming, or programming.

Well worth my time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
HANK ROGERS IS THE REAL HERO OF TETRIS. GOD BLESS THAT MAN. HE IS THE MOST GENEROUS AND KIND AND BRILLIANT BUSINESS MAN EVER HOLY SHIT WHAT A COOL GUY I HOPE HE'S DOING AND I HOPE HE KNOWS HE'S A GOD

TETRIS

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating story and get well written. There are some jarring audio patches where we suddenly change narrators for a sentence or two and they're really bad, but other than that, it was solid.

Fun Read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Feels more like a series of tech blogs with a word count they needed to hit instead of a cohesive story. Bits of info are repeated often, and awkward tangents abound. The content itself is interesting, just maybe needed another edit.

And on a technical level the audio quality varies wildly. A lot of jarring edits.

Interesting Content, bad structure

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
the audio was way to fast so i had to turn down the narration speed. Also the barrater would throw in these weird tetris facts and often then were not relative to the current chapter.

Good story, bad delivery

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dan's reading of his book was fine except he reads way too fast. Thankfully Audible let's vary the playback speed. 0.85 was perfect.

Great to relive my Tetris experience

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you play, read please. I'm glad I did. I played several games while reading(audible style) I'm going to play a few more today. As usual. I love TETRIS. never played other games much. Didn't have the need.

TETRIS FOREVER!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A great history of the convoluted story of one of the greatest games of all time. The story and style of the book was great, but the author's choice to read it himself was unwise. The narrator's pronounced lisp and tendancy to read too fast was distracting and caused me to have to think about and decipher what I had just heard to be sure I had gotten it right. The book would have been an easy 5-star recommedation from me if it had been better narrated.

A fascinating story but with bad narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you enjoy the irony of someone who seems to have 0 understanding of the impact of capitalism and corruption on USSR stability talking about a multi-million dollar deal in Soviet Moscow, this is the book for you.

If you like reading a book about a video game by someone who refers collectively to all previous video games as mindless entertainment for pre-teens, then you’ll love The Tetris Effect.

DNF, could not get past the author’s disrespect for Pajitnov (whose game he claims would be lost to the eighties as a dusty curio without the benevolent tech moguls of the West) and his disdain for breakthroughs in programming and play from Pong to Mario Brothers.

You can celebrate something without dismissing the marvels that came before it, and you can be critical of a time and place without ignoring all context. Was deeply looking forward to this read and just as deeply disappointed.

A Historical Account of a Beloved Video Game by Someone with No Love for Games or History

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What starts as a promising deeper look at the tangled Tetris history is ultimately marred by uneven audio, the narrator's distractingly (and unfortunately) slurred speech, bits of trivia that are inserted in the middle of the story with no audio cues, and a padded story with too many boring details. Read the book instead, but know that about half of it should have been edited out. At that point, of course, it would instead become an incredibly long magazine feature.

Never quite fits together

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.