A motion designer in South Korea that goes by the name WooDUS made this clever animation that shows how Tetris blocks are made. Tetris recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.



(via Offworld)

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Activision had a great E3. Not only was its booth swamped for the three days, but it also won the Game Critics Awards for DJ Hero and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Those two titles are clearly going to be some of the biggest releases this year, enabling the company to act with all the confidence of the world's biggest games publisher. Here, in an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz, CEO and president Mike Griffiths discusses the company's hit games for 2009, why DJ Hero can be bigger than its predecessor Guitar Hero, and why there's still room for the business to expand in Europe.

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John Carmack has explained that a key attraction of being acquired by Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media was the opportunity to become a publisher and no longer battle for marketing budget.

"We're really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured. And we've really gotten more IPs than we've been able to take advantage of. And working with other companies hasn't been working out as spectacularly as it could. So the idea of actually becoming a publisher and merging Bethesda and ZeniMax on there [is ideal]," the id Software founder told Kotaku.

"It would be hard to imagine a more complementary relationship. They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs. And they have no overlap with all the things we do in the FPSes."

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ZeniMax Media, the company behind Fallout and Oblivion publisher Bethesda, has acquired acclaimed US developer id Software.

"This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles," commented id CEO Todd Hollenshead.

"In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans."

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Sky Broadband is fixing an error that has been blocking UK customers from accessing and using the PlayStation Network between 5pm and midnight.

The system mistakenly classified PSN as a traffic-heavy application, and therefore sought to prevent or block connections to it during peak hours. Fixing this is a matter of priority, Sky says.

"Our network management system mistakenly classified PlayStation 3 traffic in a way which meant some customers using their consoles to access the internet may have had their speeds reduced, in line with our network management policy for Sky Broadband Connect," Sky told our sister site Eurogamer in a statement.

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Clover developer Binary Tweed believes the Xbox Live Community Games market is too small to be "financially viable", and that the service's only use is as an "arena for proving concepts".

"It's a shame to say that Clover has not sold as many copies as we'd hoped for. As it stands, through Community Games alone, we definitely won't recoup costs," Binary Tweed boss Daniel Jones told Digital Spy.

"Frustratingly enough, the critical reception to the game has been good. The size of the XBLCG market is prohibitively small to be financially viable, so I can only see it being of use to Binary Tweed as an arena for proving concepts."

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DS and mobile phone developer Venan Entertainment has announced the creation of a new game development initiative called Venan Arcade.

It's hoped the initiative will enable the studio - developer of DS game Ninjatown, which currently scores 80 on aggregate games review site Metacritic - to step out of the shadow of the big publishers starting with the release of an as yet unnamed iPhone and iPod Touch game due later this year.

"Although Venan has been a prominent developer in mobile for many years, our primary business model has been behind-the-scenes contract developer for publishers like EA, THQ and Sega," said Brandon Curiel, CEO and lead designer at Venan Entertainment. "Venan Arcade represents our initiative to step out from behind the curtain and deliver great gameplay experiences directly to our consumers."

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Publisher THQ today announced a reorganisation of its management team designed to support a more focused product strategy.

The move sees four of the company's key executives promoted into positions where they will manage three new business units - Core Games, Kids, Family and Casual Games and Online - into which the publisher's products will slot.

"The new structure specifically aligns our primary business units with our product strategy, enabling each team to focus on planning and execution in highly defined product areas with full profit and loss responsibility," THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell said of the move.

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Sony's PlayStation Network has hit 25 million registered users worldwide according to latest figures, and over 500 million content downloads.

The PlayStation 3 and PSP Store currently boasts a library of over 200 games, 1900 films and 9000 TV shows as well as demos and trailers.

Recent PSone title Final Fantasy VII re-released though the store for PS3 and PSP alone clocked up over 100,000 downloads in the last two weeks, making it the most downloaded game on the service in North America.

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Despite publishers shifting to the digital release of videogames, traditional High Street retailers will still have a significant role to play in selling product to consumers.

That's according to Screen Digest's head of games Piers Harding-Rolls, who told GamesIndustry.biz that bricks-and-mortar retailers will still be crucial for marketing and sales.

"Retailers will continue to have a strong role to play in selling games to consumers even with a more determined transition to digital distribution of games," he said.

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