Moderator: Guillaume Guenat (University of Lausanne)
Ani Gabrielyan (University of Lausanne) and Thibaut Vaillancourt (University of Konstanz / Paris Nanterre)
The intermedial and cultural genealogy of Nu, Pogodi! in the USSR, or why a clone is not just a clone
Nu, pogodi! (Ну, погоди!, translates to Well, just you wait!) is a 1984 soviet clone based on Nintendo’s Game & Watch Egg EG-26 released in 1981. Similarly to the original Game & Watch, this handheld device that could tell the time was the support of a game in which the player moves a wolf left and right to catch eggs laid by hens. However, the sprites of the game have been slightly redrawn to fit the characters of the super popular eponymous series of animated short films. As has already been pointed out, video games cannot be understood outside their context of emergence, that of late capitalism and the social and cultural changes that accompany it (Kline et al. 2003, 60-77 ; Kerr 2006, 4 ; Jagoda 2021, xi-xvi). If the game Nu, pogodi! has been rarely studied, apart from by Smith & Farfarelli (2017), it deserves more attention for various reasons.
Indeed, this particular game is emblematic in many ways, from economic and technological aspects at the end of the Cold War to the cultural references surrounding the work. For the first aspects, focusing on the industrial context surrounding the production of the game is significant. The game was released under the brand name Elektronika, used by the factories of the Ministry of the Electronics Industry (MEI). The MEI was responsible for research and controlled all productions of microelectronics for military and civilian use. It notoriously has been responsible for the production of computers with Soviet Intel-compatible CPU. The fact that video games emerged against a backdrop of the Cold War and the rise of game theory in economics and cybernetics is also significant. In this sense, Nu pogodi! represents an original instance of the crossroads between the cultural areas of Eastern Europe and the technological developments of the information societies.
On the cultural side, the various aspects of Nu, pogodi!’s genealogy show lineages belonging to literary history, Russian folklore, animated film and video games, and illustrate the economic and cultural emergence of a landmark game in the Soviet context. Such an example also enables us to look at more general circulations and their political and cultural implications. As a case study showing how different media and industries are intertwined, this game also allows us to sketch a comparison with industrial and commercial relations between cinema and video games in the USA.
In the case of our analysis, it seems appropriate to adopt an intermedial and therefore intersemiotic perspective. By these terms, we mean an extension of the domain of intertextuality to fields outside comparative literature and textuality as metaphor. Whether as an epithet or a noun, the notion of intersemiotics (Vaillancourt 2017; Kondrat 2020) is relevant in approaches seeking to analyze the circulation of different signs, between works and objects belonging to different media and apparatuses. This intermedial circulation also represents an original and emblematic case in which the logics of open source or remix culture amplified by the Internet are already present. While Elektronika’s Nu, Pogodi! can be described as a technological clone of a Nintendo Game & Watch, it is not a “cultural” clone. To speak of counterfeiting or cloning is not enough to grasp the singularity of an object whose connections and resonances are numerous.
The case of the Game & Watch Nu, pogodi! is representative of more general relations between culture, technology, and economy in a Cold War context. An intersemiotic perspective allows us to analyze the relationships between different aspects of this production, and shows the many encounters that take place around an object superficially reduced to a clone. If we seek to broaden this analytical perspective with new examples belonging to alternative genealogies, two differently exemplary cases may emerge. For instance, when we consider the various functionalities of the Soviet and Japanese Game & Watch, we see their use as clocks and alarm clocks. As such, these functions place the Game & Watch in the history of personal time measurement in the management of human behavior. In this sense, this device is also part of the history of industrial technology and the standardization of working time, and is thus part of the archaeology of media as practiced by Erkki Huhtamo (2004a, 2004b). Another example of an alternative genealogy could bring us to a broader analysis that would show circuits and dynamics comparable to the case studied in the advent of the Internet. If we take into account the various stages in this genealogy that mark the great ideological tensions and technological advances of the 20th century, we see a strategic and geopolitical interplay that goes from the launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviets in 1957, to the emergence of the US ARPANET, via the Cybersyn project in Allende’s Chile, followed by the US-backed Operation Condor. Various sources show the ideological, economic and ultimately geopolitical stakes intertwined in the genealogy of the contemporary Internet (Medina 2006, 2011; Packard 2023; Morozov 2023). Taking into account such dynamics at work in cultural and technological production, we can see that even in a seemingly innocuous and playful case, issues are at stake that go beyond the binary notions of cloning and copyright.
References
Elektronika. 1984. Nu, pogodi! IM-02 (Ну, погоди!). USSR.
Jagoda, Patrick. 2021. Experimental Games. Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Kerr, Aphra. 2006. The Business and Culture of Digital Games: Gamework/Gameplay. New York: SAGE Publications.
Huhtamo, Erkki. 2004a. “Elements of screenology: toward an archeology of the screen”. Iconics: International Studies of the Modern Image 7: 31–82.
–. 2004b. “Keynote: Erkki Huhtamo — Pockets of Plenty: An Archaeology Of Mobile Media”. ISEA Symposium Archives. https://www.isea-archives.org/symposia/isea2000/isea2004-keynote_huhtamo/.
Kondrat, Marie. 2020. “A-t-on besoin des concepts intersémiotiques ? Exemple du hors-champ”. Formes et (en)jeux de l’intermédialité dans l’espace européen d’hier à aujourd’hui. https://hal.science/hal-03483241.
Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and G. De Peuter. 2003. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University.
Medina, Eden. 2006. “Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende’s Chile”. Journal of Latin American Studies 38: 571–606.
–. 2011. Cybernetic Revolutionaries.Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
Morozov, Evgeny. 2023. The Santiago Boys. https://the-santiago-boys.com/.
Nintendo. 1981. Egg EG-26 (エッグ). Japan.
Packard, Noel. 2023. “INTERNET Prehistory: ARPANET Chronology”. Cogent Social Sciences 9(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2023.2245237.
Smith, Peter and Joseph Fanfarelli. 2017. “An Exploration of the Historical Contexts of Nu, Pogodi!, a Soviet Era LCD Game”. Well Played 6(2): 72–89.
Vaillancourt, Thibaut. 2017. “Simulacres et reenactment : l’aura de Laura entre cinéma et télévision, de Preminger (Laura) à Lynch (Twin Peaks)”. Intermédialités 28–29. https://doi.org/10.7202/1041076ar.
Regina Seiwald (University of Birmingham)
Happy Birthday, Tetris! Tracing the Game’s History within a Genealogy of Ludic Practices
The history of videogames as leisure electronics is a relatively recent one, starting with the creation of Tennis for Two in 1958. Since then, videogame development has enjoyed an exponential growth, with more than 14,000 games released on Steam in 2023 (Smith 2024). It is therefore unsurprising that any attempt at tracing a genealogy of videogames as ludic practices is a complex one. According to Henry Lowood and Raiford Guins, one of the key problems of such an endeavour is that games history is often “consumed with the ‘when’ and ‘what’ to the detriment of the ‘why’ and ‘how’” (Lowood and Guins 2016, xiii). To counter this limited focus, this paper uses the questions of “when” and “what” as starting points to determine “why” and “how” as well as “where” (Swalwell 2021, 1) of videogame history to move towards a genealogy of ludic practices that acknowledges socio-historical contexts in the writing of games history (Kerr 2006; Huntemann and Aslinger 2013; Wolf 2015; Wade 2016; Kirkpatrick 2017). To do so, one game that was created 40 years ago and that heralded the long-lasting success of in-home and mobile leisure electronics will be used as a case study: Tetris (1984).This game will become the lens through which it is possible to map out the history of game development practices, the synchronic and diachronic localisation of game making, distribution, and playing, as well as the inventions and changes of gaming devices.
The first part of this paper will answer to when, what, and where by analysing the production and distribution context of Tetris to determine the move from research-based to leisure computing in the geopolitical East and the West in the 1980s and early 1990s (Sheff and Eddy 1999; Alberts and Oldenziel 2014, 4; Webber 2020; Seiwald 2020, 2021; Garda 2021, 109–68; Ackerman 2023; Seiwald and Wade 2023; Krobová, Janik, and Švelch 2023). When Tetris was first developed by Alexey Pajitnov on an Electronica 60 in the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow (Weisberger 2016; Ackerman 2023, 13–14, 16), the idea of videogames and leisure electronics was barely known, particularly in the USSR (Švelch 2013, 2018; Wasiak 2016). The few Soviets that had access to computers during a time when ELORG (Elektronorgtechnica) had a monopoly on imports and exports of computer hardware and software in the Soviet Union were able to play Tetris (Ackerman 2023, 89), but this group was vanishingly small. Despite these issues of accessing the game, it was hugely successful from the get-go, and it soon spread throughout the USSR and beyond on floppy disks. One of them landed in the hands of UK-based Andromeda Software owner Robert Stein, who visited a software exhibit at the Hungarian Institute of Technology in 1986 (Sheff and Eddy 1999, 302–03). Negotiations with ELORG followed, and Stein received permission to market the game for computers (Weisberger 2016). He subsequently struck a deal with media tycoon Robert Maxwell and his son Kevin, Mirrorsoft’s CEO, granting them the rights to distribute Tetris, including those he did not own: console rights. Backed by Nintendo, Henk Rogers entered the negotiations and, in the manner of a Cold War spy thriller, uncovered Stein’s mishaps to ELORG. He was granted the console rights and Pajitnov’s game was set on track for becoming the world-famous game it eventually would. Rogers understood that for the Soviet Union, this game meant far more than simple entertainment. It was a symbol of pride, creativity, technological ingenuity, and an asset that can be monetised by dealing with the West.
In the second part, I will analyse why, again underpinned by where. The connection between digital games and electromechanical/analogue games will be addressed because Tetris builds on known structures of puzzle games, notably pentominoes, evidencing the entanglement of older ludic forms into the digital (Adams 2010, 260). The game is easy to play: rotate one of seven shapes you randomly receive to slot into the screen; once a line is full, it disappears. Later, players were able to track their score and compete with others. The advancements made in the development process of Tetris had a significant impact on game design standards and player expectations. In addition to looking at the gaming mechanics, socio-political circumstances will be taken into consideration here because the story of how Tetris was distributed around the globe certainly bears a strong impact on the idea of leisure electronics in the geopolitical East and West. Initially, the marketing of the game put a lot of emphasis on its Soviet heritage, issuing it in a big red box, having the inverted letter “R,” rendering the Cyrillic equivalent, in its title, with a depiction of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow below it.
This will lead into a discussion of how by addressing the role of home computing and portable devices in the acceleration of gaming as a commodity. The development of electronic entertainment and the change of industry needs in the 20th century are juxtaposed to determine the causality between increasing player numbers and (semi-)automation of production sectors (Sotamaa and Švelch 2021). With an increase of leisure time, the demand for entertainment soared, which is reflected in the popularity of arcade halls, computer clubs, and – for those who could afford them – home computers. At the same time, new technological innovations, such as the capacity for larger memory on smaller devices, led to developments in gaming platforms that considered the wants of the players regarding mobility. The status of the GameBoy as a core device of leisure electronics is highlighted because on the one hand, its gaming format was revolutionary, making the thrill of the arcade independent of place and time; on the other hand, its simplicity also appealed to those who previously did not engage with computers. Having four buttons (A, B, Start, Select) and a directional pad makes it easy to navigate the on-screen gameworlds. This, combined with straightforward rules and simple graphics, attracted many players. Equally, changing cartridges was easy and due to their size, it was possible to carry around several games. The option of either using an external rechargeable battery or AA batteries also ensured that one would have a power back-up. The ease that came with the GameBoy significantly added to the popularity of Tetris and the recognition of its significance as a fun and entertaining leisure activity.
The final part of this paper looks at when, what, where, why, and how as a whole to determine Tetris’s role in tracing and understanding how a genealogy of leisure electronics could be configured. This section is dedicated to the game’s legacy, ranging from its impact on the perception of gaming in society (as pastime, educational tool, political instrument, etc.), its status as a role model for today’s puzzle games, and what it suggests about a genealogy of ludic forms that distinguishes between analogue and digital. From the beginning, Tetris appealed to a diverse demographic of players to the effect that videogames were pushed out of the niche they initially found themselves in that they catered to the technology-savvy ones. The fact that the game still enjoys a large player-base, continues to be reissued on new platforms, and has influenced dozens of other games suggests that it allows researchers to map out the development of games and gaming over four decades. As videogames employ “existential mechanisms analogous to those by which we engage with the actual world” (Gualeni and Vella 2022, 176), the unifying factor of Tetris is also emphasised, positioning the game as a product of collective history. Despite its historiopolitical place, born in the gaping divide between East and West, it is also important to understand the game’s role for game development and gaming technology as a whole. The way people reacted to Tetris, pointedly described as the “Tetris craze” (“After Hours” 1988) and resulted in the discovery of the “Tetris effect” (Goldsmith 1994), had a lasting influence on game genre and platform development, but also on the way games were perceived by the public.
The outcome of this paper is therefore a study of the development of leisure electronics and their legacy for today’s players and game makers by focusing on a game that witnessed decades of gaming and playing evolution. The paper takes localisation into consideration but does not build its approach to games history on the local for its own sake (Izushi and Aoyama 2006). It does so by emphasising the relationships and differences between videogame history in the West and the East by looking at a game that plays an immense part in the history of both geopolitical areas. Tracing Tetris’s 40-year-long history allows us to see and understand the various contexts and factors that influenced the development of leisure electronics as well as how their legacy still impacts today’s game production, gameplay, and attitudes towards games.
References
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Adams, Ernest. 2010. Fundamentals of Game Design. 2nd ed. Berkeley: New Riders.
“After Hours.” 1988. PC Magazine 7, no. 8 (April 26): 363.
Alberts, Gerard, and Ruth Oldenziel, eds. 2014. Hacking Europe: From Computer Cultures to Demoscenes. London: Springer.
Garda, Maria B. 2021. “Microcomputing Revolution in the Polish People’s Republic in the 1980s.” In New Media Behind the Iron Curtain: Cultural History of Video, Microcomputers and Satellite Television in Communist Poland, edited by Piotr Sitarski, Maria B. Garda, Krzysztof Jajko, and Graeme Kirkpatrick, 109–68. Lodz: Lodz University Press.
Goldsmith, Jeffrey. 1994. “Did Alexey Pajitnov Invent a Pharmatronic?” Wired, May 1, 1994. https://www.wired.com/1994/05/tetris-2/, accessed April 8, 2024.
Gualeni, Stefano, and Daniel Vella. 2022. “Existential Ludology and Peter Wessel Zapffe.” In Perspectives on the European Videogame, edited by Victor Navarro-Remesal and Óliver Pérez-Latorre, 175–92. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Huntemann, Nina, and Ben Aslinger, eds. 2013. Gaming Globally: Production, Play, and Place. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Izushi, Hiro, and Yuko Aoyama. 2006. “Industry Evolution and Cross-Sectoral Skills Transfers: A Comparative Analysis of the Video Game Industry in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.” Environment and Planning 38: 1834–61.
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Krobová, Tereza Fousek, Justyna Janik, and Jaroslav Švelch. 2023. “Summoning Ghosts of Post-Soviet Spaces: A Comparative Study of the Horror Games Someday You’ll Return and the Medium.” Studies in Eastern European Cinema 14, no. 1: 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/2040350X.2022.2071520.
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Michael Conrad (University St. Gallen)
United by Code: The Cultural Impact of BASIC as a Glocalized Coding Language for Gaming Communities in East and West Germany during the 1980s
Extended abstracts will be added by the time of the event.