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Tetris by the numbers

Johannesburg - Video game Tetris may be over 30 years old, but it remains among the most popular gaming titles on earth.

Tetris was spawned in 1984 when a computer programmer in the USSR called Alexey Patijnov launched his basic but challenging block breaking game.

The name “Tetris” is a combination of the Greek word ‘tetra’ - which translates to four - and the word tennis.

Patijnov’s intention was just to create a fun game, but over three decades later a movie about the game’s creation is on the cards with producer Brett Ratner set to drive the project.

Tetris, then, has become more than just a game by entering the realm of popular culture. It’s also morphed onto various platforms from the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989 to the smartphone era where Tetris is an app for Google Android and Apple iOS devices.

And if you’ve ever wondered about the reach of this gaming hit, here is a description of its reach by numbers. This information is based on data from Tetris Press and USA TODAY.

- 2, the number of weeks it reportedly took Pajitnov to create the original game.

- 7, the official number of one-sided pieces in Tetris: I, J, L, O, S, T, and Z, which have been named for their resemblance to letters in the English alphabet.

- 185, the number of countries where it is played

- 50, the number of languages that Tetris has been translated into

- 35 million, the number of Tetris game units that were sold for the original Game Boy platform

- More than 500 million, the number of downloads of Tetris on mobile devices.

WATCH: The incredible history of Tetris

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