Tetris has been immortalized in a playable McDonald’s plastic chicken nugget, a playable fake 7-Eleven Slurpee cup, and a playable wristwatch. But the most intriguing way to play Tetris yet is encased in paper.
Technology
This magazine plays Tetris — here’s how
Last year the Tetris Company partnered with Red Bull for a gaming tournament that culminated in the 150-meter-tall Dubai Frame landmark being turned into the world’s largest playable Tetris installation using over 2,000 drones that functioned as pixels. Although the timing was a coincidence, Red Bull also published a 180-page gaming edition of its The Red Bulletin lifestyle magazine around the same time as the event, with a limited number of copies wrapped in a less grandiose, but no less technically impressive, version of Alexey Pajitnov’s iconic puzzle game.
To create a playable gaming magazine, Red Bull Media House (the company’s media wing) enlisted the help of Kevin Bates, who in 2014 wowed the internet by creating an ultra-thin Tetris-playing business card. In 2015, he launched the $39 Arduboy, a credit card-sized, open-source handheld that attracted a thriving community of developers. Over the course of a decade, Bates also created a pair of equally pocketable Tetris-playing handhelds that cost less than $30, and the shrunken-down USB-C Arduboy Mini.
The GamePop GP-1 Playable Magazine System (as it’s officially called) is the latest evolution of Bates’ mission to use existing, accessible, and affordable technologies to reimagine what a portable gaming device can be. It took “most of last year” to develop, Bates revealed during a call with The Verge. He wouldn’t divulge the exact details of how his collaboration with Red Bull came to be. But if you’re looking to make an officially licensed version of Tetris that’s thin enough to flex, Bates has the experience, and he shared with us some of the technical details that make this creation work.
While OLED display technology has given us tablet-sized devices that fold into smartphones, they’re still expensive and fragile. To make a display that can survive being embedded in a flexible magazine cover without reinforcement, Bates created a custom matrix of 180 2mm RGB LEDs mounted to a flexible circuit board just 0.1mm thick. While the display and coin-cell batteries make it thicker in a few places — nearly 5mm at its thickest point — you genuinely feel like you’re playing a handheld made of paper. The flexible circuits are bonded between two sheets of paper to create the sleeve that wraps around the book-sized magazine, and it feels satisfyingly thin and flexible.
Flexible circuits aren’t a new idea. They’ve been used in electronics for decades. You can find them in flip phones old enough they now feel like antiques, and nearly every laptop. They’re also frequently used to miniaturize devices that don’t fold or flex at all, connecting internal components where space is extremely limited. But it’s only in the past five or six years that the technology has become available to smaller makers, and Bates says he’s been “messing around with the flexible circuits for about as much time.” This collaboration was an opportunity to use what he’s learned to create a device that would live outside his workshop.
The GamePop GP-1’s display resolution pales in comparison to the OLED screens used in folding phones, but Bates’ creation is far more durable. The game has not only undergone the typical safety tests, but Bates even “hit it with a hammer a few times” to test its durability. His display survived, but don’t try that with a folding phone. They’re still far less durable.
Instead of buttons, the game uses seven capacitive touch sensors that are directly “printed in the copper layer of the board,” Bates says. There’s no true mechanical feedback when pressed, but the paper’s flex helps them feel a bit like a button when you press down. Bates says the responsiveness of the sensors was specifically tuned to account for the thickness of the paper stock and the glues used in the final print run. You’re not going to be chasing Tetris world records on the cover of a magazine, but the controls are satisfyingly responsive and the game is surprisingly much easier to play than other Tetris devices I’ve tested.
How much does a flexible Tetris game cost to manufacture? Neither Bates nor Red Bull would divulge the total price tag for all the off-the-shelf and custom components you’ll find sandwiched inside the magazine’s cover. But to help keep costs down, not all components are flexible. Inside the edge of the cover, next to the magazine’s spine, you’ll find a long but thin rigid PCB where an ARM-based 32-bit microprocessor is located, along with four rechargeable LIR2016 3V coin cell batteries.
Like most devices now, the game can be recharged using a USB-C cable, but it’s not immediately obvious where. Hidden along the bottom edge of the magazine’s cover is a deconstructed USB-C port. Instead of a metal ring, its socket is a small paper pocket containing a pin-covered head inside. It doesn’t feel quite as durable as the charging port on your phone, but it’s a welcome alternative to making the game disposable when the batteries die.
Bates did have to cut some corners. The GamePop GP-1 saves high scores, but modern Tetris gameplay features, like previews of upcoming pieces and being able to save tetrominoes for later, aren’t included. There’s sound effects, but when starting a game you only hear a small snippet of the iconic Tetris theme. The game’s piezo speaker “uses about as much energy as it does to run the rest of the system,” Bates says, so this helps prolong the life of the small rechargeable batteries. He tells us you can play for an hour or two that way, and the battery should last many months when not in use.
Red Bull made around 1,000 copies of the magazine. It’s only available online in Europe, but can also be found in some stores and newsstands, including Iconic Magazines in New York and Rare Mags outside Manchester in the UK. However, only 150 copies with the playable cover were produced, and none were made available to the public. They were distributed to Tetris competitors, those featured in the magazine, influencers, and select media.
The playable cover isn’t going to revolutionize the print industry, or pave the way for smartphones we can roll up and stick in our back pockets. The goal was to use existing tech in a way that gamers haven’t seen before.
Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge
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New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Valve for “illegally promoting gambling” through the loot box systems it has built for video games like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, according to a press release. The attorney general seeks to “permanently stop Valve from promoting gambling features in its games, disgorge all ill-gotten gains, and pay fines for violating New York’s laws.”
“This loot box model that Valve has developed — charging an individual for a chance to win something of value based on luck alone — is quintessential gambling, prohibited under New York’s Constitution and Penal Law,” the lawsuit says. Valve has made “tens of millions of dollars” selling loot box keys to “thousands” of New York residents and has “made millions of dollars more in commissions from New Yorkers who sold virtual items obtained from loot boxes.” The company’s loot boxes are also “particularly pernicious” because they’re popular with children and adolescents, according to the complaint.
Users can purchase keys to open loot boxes in some Valve games and receive randomly-selected virtual items as rewards. If they want, users can then sell those rewards on the Steam Community Market and on third-party marketplaces; the rarer items can be worth “thousands of dollars,” the lawsuit says. These systems, however, require that users pay Valve $2.49 plus tax to open the loot boxes, and users often get items that are “worth less than what the user spent on the key”. The lawsuit also notes that Valve’s experience for opening a loot box in Counter-Strike 2 resembles that of a slot machine.
Valve didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
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At the start of the year, you did everything right. You searched your name, opted out of several data broker sites and deleted listings that exposed your address, phone number and relatives.
At first, it felt like a clean slate. However, here’s the uncomfortable truth: your data rarely stays gone. In many cases, February is when it quietly returns.
Privacy does not work as a one-time cleanup. Instead, it requires ongoing maintenance, because data brokers design their systems to outlast your best intentions.
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STOP DATA BROKERS FROM SELLING YOUR INFORMATION ONLINE
Cybersecurity advocates urge continuous monitoring to prevent data brokers from recreating deleted profiles. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
How data brokers re-list your information (even after you delete it)
Most people assume that once they remove their profile from a data broker site, it’s gone for good.
That’s not how the system works. Data brokers don’t “store” your information the way a normal website does. They rebuild it constantly using automated data feeds from:
- Credit headers
- Property and mortgage records
- Utility registrations
- Loyalty programs
- App tracking efforts
- Court filings and public databases
- Online purchases and subscriptions
Every few weeks, their systems can re-ingest new records and match them to your identity. That means:
- Your old address gets replaced with your new one
- Your new phone number appears
- Your relatives are updated
- Your age, job history and household data refresh
- Your digital footprint grows more detailed over time
Even if you removed your profile in January, the next data refresh can quietly re-create it in February under a slightly different variation of your name. This is why people often say: “I removed my data… and then found it again a month later.” It wasn’t a mistake. It’s how the business model works.
Why January cleanups still leave you exposed
Manual opt-outs feel empowering at first. However, they rarely last. The real issue is scale: hundreds of data brokers collect, trade and republish personal information, and many share data with one another. As a result, removing your profile from one site does not stop the spread. Instead:
- Another broker re-adds you using a new source
- A third site scrapes the refreshed profile
- A fourth copies the updated record
- The cycle starts again
You’re not fighting one website. You’re fighting a self-healing network of databases that rebuild your profile every few weeks. That’s why January cleanups don’t protect you throughout the year. Scammers know this. They don’t just scrape old databases; they wait for newly refreshed lists that contain your:
- Current phone number
- Correct address
- Relatives
- Likely income range
- Age and life stage
By February and March, those lists are already circulating again.
10 SIGNS YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS BEING SOLD ONLINE
Experts warn January privacy cleanups may not last as data broker databases refresh in February. (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
What scammers get when your profile is rebuilt
When your data comes back, it doesn’t just sit on a website. It becomes fuel for:
That’s why scams feel personal now. Criminals often have access to:
- Your current address
- Names of relatives
- Your age
- Your likely income range
Rather than guessing, scammers search your profile and build their pitch around real details. That precision is what makes today’s fraud attempts so convincing.
What ‘ongoing removal’ actually protects against
This is where most people misunderstand privacy tools. The real threat isn’t the old profile you deleted. It’s the next version that gets created.
Ongoing removal means:
- Your data is constantly scanned across broker networks
- New profiles are detected as soon as they appear
- Fresh listings are removed automatically
- Re-created records don’t get time to circulate.
Instead of playing whack-a-mole once a year, you block the rebuild cycle itself. This is the only way to stay ahead of systems designed to outlast you.
SPYWARE CAN HIJACK YOUR PHONE IN SECONDS
Ongoing data removal services aim to stop personal profiles from reappearing across broker networks. (Elisa Schu/picture alliance via Getty Images)
How to stop data brokers from rebuilding your profile
If you truly want to stay off data broker sites, you need a system that:
- Scans for new profiles
- Removes them as they appear
- Keeps doing it every month.
That’s what a data removal service was built for. While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy.
These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet.
By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
Why this matters more in February than January
In January, people clean up their digital footprint. By contrast, February is when many data brokers refresh their databases and scammers begin working from newly updated lists. Instead of sending alerts, brokers quietly republish your details.
You receive no warning when your profile reappears, and no notification when someone resells your information. As a result, most people only realize what happened after a scam email hits their inbox or a suspicious call lights up their phone.
For that reason, February becomes the moment of confusion. That is when readers often say, “I thought I already handled this.”
Kurt’s key takeaways
At the start of the year, you did what most people avoid. You searched your name, opted out of broker sites and took control of your information. However, privacy does not work like a one-time spring cleaning. Instead, it works more like lawn care. The moment you stop maintaining it, the growth returns. Data brokers constantly refresh and rebuild profiles. They pull from public records, commercial feeds and shared databases. As a result, when your profile reappears, scammers do not treat it like old data. They treat it like fresh intelligence. That is exactly why February matters. While January feels proactive, February is when many databases quietly update and republish information. So if you want lasting control, you need consistent monitoring and ongoing removal, not a single annual cleanup. The real objective is not simply deleting an old profile. Rather, it is stopping the next version from spreading in the first place. Ultimately, privacy is not about what you remove. It is about what never comes back.
Have you ever removed your personal information from a data broker site, only to find it listed again weeks later? Let us know your thoughts by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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It took me a while to recover from the first big scare in Resident Evil Requiem. There I was, hunched over with a screen inches from my face and headphones in my ears, when a gigantic woman began chasing me through a dimly lit hallway intent on, well, eating me. It was a heart-racing sequence, and when I finally got to a save room I had to put the game down for a few minutes. It was an early indication that Requiem was a great game, and further evidence that the Switch 2 is becoming a welcome home for third-party titles.
Since Nintendo’s latest console launched last June, there have been few chances to see how it directly stacks up to other platforms. The successful cross-platform launch of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 was a good early sign for the Switch 2, but Requiem might be the best test so far. It’s a blockbuster action-horror game launching simultaneously across the Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, and PC. And while there are certainly some compromises on Nintendo’s platform, Requiem is a surprisingly solid experience on the Switch 2.
Requiem brings together two different types of Resident Evil games: the fast-paced action of Resident Evil 4 and the more visceral first-person terror of Biohazard and Village. Those two sides are represented through two playable characters. RE4 hunk Leon returns as a grizzled action hero, while newcomer Grace is a more hapless FBI agent who does a lot of running and hiding. Impressively, you can seamlessly swap between viewpoints at any point, letting you experience Grace’s scares in first person or help Leon wield a chainsaw in third person (or vice versa).
On a purely functional level, I haven’t had any issues with the game on the Switch 2. There haven’t been any noticeable slowdowns or hitches, aside from one time when the corpse of a zombie butcher disappeared briefly, which gave me a scare thinking he’d come back to life after a tense shootout. But there’s been nothing game-breaking, and that’s been true in both portable and TV modes.
The main compromise, of course, is visual. Requiem on the Switch 2 simply does not look as good as it does on PC or the other consoles. There are a lot of blurry textures, particularly when you get up close to objects or walls, and things overall just don’t look as sharp or clear as they do on, say, a PS5. It’s especially noticeable in first-person mode when you’re up closer to objects and characters. I also spotted some wonky hair physics, with hair occasionally deciding to defy the laws of gravity and float whichever way it wanted. Again, none of these are game-breaking issues, but they do cut into the tension Requiem works so hard to build.
This is a busy week for Resident Evil fans who also own a Switch 2. In addition to Requiem, Capcom has released belated ports of Biohazard and Village. And while these are older games, my experience was much the same. I played through the beginning area of Biohazard again for the first time in nearly a decade — which I regret, because it is so freaking scary — and it similarly performed well but was plagued by fuzzy textures and impossible floating hair.
Honestly, that’s about the best-case scenario for ports like these. We all know the Switch 2 is underpowered compared to its direct competitors, so a game like Requiem is always going to feel hamstrung in some way. A port of Requiem that’s good enough, even if it’s not the best version of the game, goes a long way to helping Nintendo continue to flesh out the Switch 2’s library, which has grown steadily in both size and quality despite a notable lack of major first-party titles from Nintendo. And let’s not forget the fact that what you lose in visual splendor you make up for in portability.
Requiem is a good sign for the Switch 2’s viability as a platform for major third-party games, but an even better sign would be seeing releases like this more frequently. We won’t have to wait too long to see the next big test: Capcom’s sci-fi action game Pragmata launches across most major platforms, Switch 2 included, in April. I can’t wait to see how hair floats in space.
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