Sheff, David. .Game over : how Nintendo zapped an American industry, captured your dollars, and enslaved your children / David Sheff. [0679404694 : ] New York : Random House, c1993.
Call#: Lippincott Library HD9993.E454 N577 1993

The book Game Over documents video game giant Nintendo's rise to fame and fortune, from its humble start as a playing card company to what it is today. However, the chapters "From Russia with Love" and "The "Tetris" Song" were what specifically attracted me to this book. Within these two chapters, Sheff recounts the intensive legal battles surrounding the game Tetris since its inception as a PC game. As soon as Tetris was revealed it was obvious to video game developers that is was to become a tremendous hit. In their impetuosity to obtain the first platform right to the game, software company Spectrum Holobyte purchases the game from a small software house named Andromeda before they had even confirmed ownership, and thusly, before they even had the right to sell. This lead to Spectrum Holobyte creating an illegal version of Tetris for the PC. Unfortunately, the PC version was a complete hit, and so the illegal rights continued to be sold. When Soviet company Elorg signed the actual right of the game to Nintendo, a tempest of legal disputes began pertaining to the multiple illegal copies that could be found on several consoles. Most notably is the Tengen/Atari version of the game, created for the NES. The chapter "The "Tetris" Song" particularly focuses on the legal battles between Atari and Nintendo, which culminated in Nintendo gaining all rights, including those for its handheld system, Game Boy, and Atari having to recall 50,000 copies of its version of Tetris, having been deemed illegal.
In regards to my paper, the Tetris cases represent a major problem within the game industry during its shaky beginnings. Much like other forms and mediums, it took a series of court cases to define the standards of copyright practices. The Tetris case serves as a good example of video game copyright gone wrong, along with proof that such copyright decisions at the time could drastically change the market. Nintendo gaining the rights to Tetris may have had just as much to do with luck as it did with negotiation skills, however, the proceeding cases definitely set a precedent within the video gaming industry. In addition, although it is not discussed within the book, further legal proceedings regarding Tetris were to take place later in time.