GDC08: Tetris, "the Slim Jim of video games"

by Richard Mitchell { Feb 18th 2008 at 9:45PM }

In what is destined to become the most interesting metaphor used at GDC this year, iQ212 founder Rick Marazzani noted that Tetris is "the Slim Jim of video games." The proclamation came during a lecture entitled "Tetris: Best/Worst Mobile Game Ever," in which Marazzani analyzed the success of Tetris on mobile platforms. Slim Jims -- much like Tetris -- are "brandable," descriptive, and easy to consume, all of which are very important factors for ~~mobile games~~ meat snacks to succeed. Marazzani contends, however, that Tetris would not succeed if it had been invented in today's market. The primary reason for this is that Tetris isn't winnable, which is apparently a requirement for mobile users. To the best of our knowledge, Slim Jim's aren't winnable either, so the metaphor stands the test.

Most of it makes some amount of (meat-related) sense, but we'd take exception to the idea that a game must have a win condition to be successful (several lecture attendees pointed out games like Bejeweled and Lumines, for example).

Tags: gdc08, slim-jim, slimjim, tetris

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

The Artist formally known as Jesus @ Feb 18th 2008 9:49PM

Of course it would succeed you limey twats

Saria the Cat @ Feb 19th 2008 12:37AM

Yeah, who says mobile games require "winnability?" Most mobile games are casual games, and most casual games don't really have "endings," just levels you can pass to reach the next. Besides, Tetris is TIMELESS!

Guzzie @ Feb 18th 2008 9:52PM

Slim Jims are god awful. bleh

Jerk Face @ Feb 19th 2008 11:06AM

Maybe YOU are god awful.

...

SNAP INTO 'EM!

Chris @ Feb 18th 2008 9:58PM

Man.... This brings back so many memories of road trips... tetris on the gameboy, a bag of slim jim's, and a brand new Guns and Roses casset on the walkman, trying to tune out the parent's gosh-awful folk song singalongs.

Tetris would have to come as a pack-in to do well. Cause I can't see people buying it, in today's market, but if it came bundled as either a demo or even the full game, like on your computer or with your DS or whatever, it would be very successful, just because it's SO DANG ADDICTIVE.

waynski1457 @ Feb 18th 2008 9:58PM

i think it would succeed, but it wouldnt come close to being the household name it is now. also, pajitnov's most recent games, hexic, didnt fare so well, so yea...

rockintom @ Feb 19th 2008 2:40PM

I like hexic :(

...It's no tetris, though.

DangerMouse @ Feb 18th 2008 9:59PM

If you don't like slim jims, then you can just go to hell!!!!

flYY @ Feb 18th 2008 10:00PM

I think someone already posted a video of Rick's speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkdVymW8C8&feature=related

flYY @ Feb 18th 2008 10:03PM

oops here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Phi Nguyen @ Feb 18th 2008 11:21PM

Ah, you bastard! I've been RickRoll'D.

Lucky @ Feb 18th 2008 10:02PM

I'm not a classic or casual gamer. Yet I still pick up Tetris when I'm not fraging.

I think it would still do well.

Double J @ Feb 18th 2008 10:03PM

I don't care for your hypothetical nonsense! All I know is in the 80s, 90s, and now present day, I'm fully capable of playing Tetris up to 2 hours a sitting and never get bored on my Nintendo handheld devices.

Anononomous @ Feb 18th 2008 10:07PM

Uh, I like Meteos and it isn't winnable.

MosquitoControl @ Feb 18th 2008 10:14PM

I don't want a winnable mobile game. I want something I can quickly play for 30 seconds to 10 minutes here and there. A game that goes infinitely.

Give me a Drug Wars clone. Simple and easy. Buy item A in location B, sell it for twice as much in location C. Repeat. Beat people up. Avoid the law. Avoid competitors. Buy arms. Plan raids. Grow bigger. Keep growing.

Right now Monopoly and Monopoly Tycoon get the only play on my cell. I can pick them up, dominate the AI, close at any moment.

Is it too hard to keep giving us these? I also have Brothers In Arms, which is terrible - it's just like a console game. But I play it when I'm on the subway...

ApolloIV @ Feb 18th 2008 10:18PM

With casual gamers making a huge chunk of the market now I would assume it would take off like crazy. Now that's not to say if they just threw it out there people would realize it was "Tetris" like we know it now to be. It would have to be advertised a bit and maybe thrown up as a flash game here and there, but it would most deffinetly sell.

Dorie @ Feb 18th 2008 10:25PM

My kids like Tetris just as well as I do. Just like the jaw-wrenching appeal of Slim Jims, Tetris is a great stress reliever. The appeal was not necessarily "winning" the game, but winning between players. During that whole era, someone's gaming notoriety was based on how far up the high-score list you got. The goal at any given time is to get as far as possible past the point of the excruciating anguish your fellow competitor reached when he hit his "ceiling". When it first came out, we'd have it going on in the background at parties, and people would take turns between refreshments. Back in the late 80s at the end of the cold war, part of the novelty was something fun coming from someone who sounded Russian.

Mighty Shockwave @ Feb 18th 2008 10:44PM

Meh. Tetris is a gem because of what I like to call simple complexity. It requires minimal instruction to play (move left, move right, and turn the piece), and yet it offers incredible room or improvement. Besides, even though single-player tetris doesn't really have enough action for the average gamer, the vs. modes in Tetris DS offer an incredible sense of competition, and it consumes my time more than I would like.

Mischa @ Feb 18th 2008 11:07PM

It's so difficult to say, because so many puzzle games have been influenced by tetris, that if there were no tetris back when it was released, then my guess is that games like meteos and planet puzzle league wouldn't have been created. Tetris is such a critical mass game that it's hard to think of it outside of its original context.

I think people who say "games like tetris wouldn't succeed today" are just jaded. I think tetris would sell like hot cakes today, no question.

Aaron Larson @ Feb 19th 2008 12:11AM

Right on. That's exactly what I was going to post. The question is flawed because the state of gaming today is too heavily influenced by what came out earlier. Honestly, if you took Tetris out of the equation, games would probably be no more than a button for sex and a button for murder (I kid. Just throwing a THX 1138 reference in).

Saria the Cat @ Feb 19th 2008 12:41AM

Agreed. It's kind of like asking, "If bread wasn't invented until today, would it still enjoy the same level of deliciousness?"

Bluebrake @ Feb 19th 2008 2:02AM

Exactly. Without Tetris being released when it was, the puzzle game market wouldn't look the way it does today. Maybe it wouldn't even exist. So it wouldn't be a matter of the game being old news the way most puzzle games seem these days.

I guess this question depends on an assumption that Tetris would somehow be released into a market exactly the same as it is today. But then you have to throw the rules of cause and effect out the window, so I say Tetris would sell 10 billion copies before it was released, and then talking mole-rats would conquer the earth.

Bluebrake @ Feb 19th 2008 2:19AM

One thing I should add is that Tetris's profound influence wasn't just on puzzle games, but on mobile gaming in general. I'd forgotten how essential Tetris was to the success of the Game Boy. Without it, mobile gaming might have been set back quite a few years.

RabbidMickeyMouse @ Feb 18th 2008 11:13PM

It wouldn't succeed because at this point, it wouldn't be the first (or at least widely popular) falling brick puzzle game to have come out.

Negativecool @ Feb 18th 2008 11:19PM

Anyone who truly believes it would succeed is being fooled by his/her own love of the game and refuse to acknowledge the realities of today's gaming market.

If it were released today it may be praised and received at the level of say Geometry Wars, but it most certainly wouldn't be THE Tetris that we all know and love.

Vidikron (FU) @ Feb 19th 2008 12:00AM

That's kind of a different question though, right? The question asked is whether or not it would "succeed", not necessarily a question of would it enjoy the same level of success.

Bluebrake @ Feb 19th 2008 1:55AM

If Tetris is still the most popular mobile game, that's probably a pretty good indication that being winnable isn't "a requirement for mobile users."

squeevi @ Feb 19th 2008 2:46AM

I read the headline through an RSS feed, and didn't see the picture to go along with it. So when I read it I thought it was refering to slim jims that are used to break into cars. And in fact I thought that analogy worked much better, lol! A slim jim can break into any car just as Tetris has broke into every platform imaginable, lol!!

Ethan @ Feb 19th 2008 3:23AM

I thin it would be entirely engulfed as a pirated 'casual PC game.' I think it would be as popular, I just don't think anybody would manage to monetize it as well.

Hashbrown_Hunter @ Feb 19th 2008 3:52AM

At first, I thought I had finally defeated the chewy, somewhat stale fury of the said Slim Jims....but alas I found myself trapped upon the surface of my bowel reliever for centuries.

Damn doom sticks.

ThornedVenom (Ludwig Defense Force) @ Feb 19th 2008 4:02AM

Even though Tetris is a timeless masterpiece, it wouldn't have had the same impact since back then, it was marketed as the Soviet game here in the US, considering that they had little to no info during the Cold War about what was going on on the other side of the world.

And like some other dude above me commented, Tetris has inspired so many puzzle games up to now.

Kye Wii60DF @ Feb 19th 2008 5:07AM

Tetris is like a slinky; Easy, fun, you don't want to put it down, and it'll be fun for generations to come.

gamabunta @ Feb 19th 2008 5:09AM

I still play the original Tetris cart for my Game Boy. I find it a lot more entertaining than a majority of the crap that has come out since.

Marazzani is talking out of his ass.

randomshagz @ Feb 19th 2008 8:08AM

Lumines... 999,999

you hit that... you did it my friend.

Do it enough times to fill your name on all the slots.

Lumines Club is where the party is at...

James @ Feb 19th 2008 8:10AM

What on earth is a "Slim Jim"

Karen @ Feb 19th 2008 9:14AM

I just bought Tetris DS because I was worn out playing the original GB version. I was surprised at how fun and different the extra play modes are. It's the first time I felt Tetris evolved in different ways.

Bucket @ Feb 19th 2008 10:31AM

If it were released today, it would probably fall into obscurity among all the other puzzle games. But then, I have to assume if Tetris didn't exist, all the copycat puzzle games that evolved from it would never have been made.

Tough call. At any rate, Tetris came at the right time. Any real Tetris fan can't imagine playing it on anything other than a Gameboy.