When Henk Rogers learn the script for the Tetris film — about his journey into the Soviet Union to get the rights to Alexey Pajitnov’s addictive sport — he didn’t acknowledge a few of the scenes. Whereas a few of these scenes within the 2023 film introduced tears to his eyes, Rogers determined that he needed to set the report straight on the within story of how Tetris got here to promote lots of of tens of millions of copies.
He additionally survived a coronary heart assault — the type that kill most individuals who’ve it. He knew that he didn’t have on a regular basis on the planet to inform his story, which incorporates his post-gaming life and efforts to handle local weather change earlier than it’s too late for us. And so he wrote The Excellent Sport: Tetris, From Russia With Love, the story of his life and the way Tetris got here to be so beloved around the globe that it’s nonetheless being performed many years after he found it. The sport is greater than 40 years previous, and it’s nonetheless going sturdy.
That includes a foreword by Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, the ebook chronicles Rogers’ groundbreaking contributions to the gaming trade, his relentless pursuit of innovation, and his deep dedication to sustainable power.
A local of the Netherlands, Rogers moved to New York Metropolis in 1964, the place he attended Stuyvesant Excessive College and programmed his first laptop. After majoring in laptop science and “minoring in Dungeons and Dragons” on the College of Hawaii, he moved to Japan in 1976 and have become a trailblazer within the nation’s gaming trade.
He based Bullet-Proof Software program and developed The Black Onyx, Japan’s first role-playing sport, which turned the No. 1 sport in Japan in 1984. His discovery of Tetris on the 1988 Shopper Electronics Present in Las Vegas set the stage for considered one of gaming’s most dramatic enterprise offers. Touring to Moscow, he navigated tense negotiations with the Soviet Union, outmaneuvered company giants, and in the end secured the hand-held rights for Nintendo’s Sport Boy, a transfer that without end reshaped the gaming trade.
I’ve identified Rogers for a very long time and he’s at all times considerate and a little bit of a showman. Rogers approached the enterprise as a sport designer himself, managing Tetris in order that its fruits could possibly be shared in a good manner. He arrange the Tetris Firm and shared the income with Alexey Pajitnov, who created the sport within the Nineteen Eighties behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union. They’re nonetheless buddies at present, and Rogers turned over the household enterprise to Maya Rogers, his daughter, who serves as CEO.
Rogers based Blue Planet Basis to drive Hawaii’s transition to 100% renewable power, and in 2021, he launched Blue Planet Alliance, which helps communities worldwide break away from fossil fuels.
Our interview went to a variety of sudden locations. He talked about what’s a sport, what video games was once, what video games have turn out to be, and the place they may go subsequent.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Henk Rogers’ The Excellent Sport ebook tells his life story.
GamesBeat: So many issues have been stated and informed about Tetris over time. I’m wondering if there’s extra left to inform. What led you to need to inform this your self?
Henk Rogers: There’s a lot. I put a variety of sweat into Tetris. Once I took over Tetris in 1996, all of the Tetrises earlier than that have been carried out uncontrolled. The Sega Tetris, the Nintendo Tetris, they have been fully totally different. The Nintendo Tetris, you management the block because it’s falling. As soon as it lands it locks down. The Sega Tetris, you’ll be able to exhausting drop it, and as soon as it lands you’ll be able to manipulate it and transfer it round. Whenever you watch the video games, it’s like two totally different video games. The particular person enjoying this sport would have a tough time enjoying that sport, and vice versa.
I stated, “That can’t be. I have to standardize this.” I put a variety of thought into how I might make one rotation system to suit each gamers. I really employed any person to do that, to determine it out. It simply wasn’t satisfying. It was kludgey. Then I made a decision to do it myself. I took virtually every week to determine it out. On the finish, the way in which it really works now’s that when the items fall, they seem like they rotate. That’s the Nintendo rotation. As soon as they land and the participant tries to maneuver them, it does the Sega rotation. It does each. Each gamers can play that manner.
GamesBeat: Going again even earlier, there’s a lot to the Tetris story, whenever you first went to fulfill Alexey and so forth. Had been there belongings you by no means informed different folks, whether or not in interviews or wherever else? Is it that you simply lastly had the time to look again?
Rogers: I perceive what you’re making an attempt to say right here. The issue is I don’t bear in mind. I’ve carried out so many interviews. Alexey taught me the right way to drink Russian-style. I went to his home various instances. We’d have what they name cognac, but it surely’s really Armenian or Moldavian brandy, ararat. They arrive in tall, skinny bottles. We’d end the bottle, after which we’d change to vodka and end that. I bear in mind one time he needed to go for straight alcohol, the stuff he used to scrub his keyboard. I stated, “No, I’m not doing this.” I used to be actually drunk, however I wasn’t silly sufficient to do this. He stated, “No, it’s not the kind that’s going to kill you. It’s just very good vodka.” Ninety-five % alcohol vodka. Are you severe? No. I used to be already fully zatzed.
I discovered the right way to drink with Alexey. I’m nonetheless struggling to get away from it. We’ve toned down. Each time I’m with Alexey, each different day, a bottle of wine. It’s uncommon that we do what he calls “a bit, a little.”
GamesBeat: We’re to this point into successive generations of avid gamers now that there are in all probability lots of people who don’t know the Tetris story, even after the film. It’s an opportunity to retell some historical past for individuals who don’t know the sport.
Henk Rogers (proper) and Dean Takahashi at GDC 2025.
Rogers: It’s a part of the sport trade now. Only a few video games like which can be nonetheless round. Pac-Man, I don’t know if it’s nonetheless round. I don’t know if you should buy Pac-Man on the iPhone or not. The character is iconic, however the sport is just not one thing everybody remembers.
GamesBeat: Why did you name it The Excellent Sport? What was the argument for that?
Rogers: There are a number of arguments. I’m not saying Tetris is the proper sport, however the ebook is The Excellent Sport. It’s my seek for the proper sport. One other manner of it, I created the primary RPG in Japan. That could possibly be the proper sport. I’m not saying Tetris is the proper sport. It’s implied. The right sport is a sport that you simply create that’s nonetheless being performed after you’ve misplaced curiosity. I’m not saying I’ve misplaced curiosity, however I’m simply saying there are only a few video games like that.
GamesBeat: I suppose that’s the proof. If it’s nonetheless round after many years, there’s one thing about it that catches on with any era.
Rogers: The key sauce is that tradition modifications, however arithmetic doesn’t change. We’re speaking about geometry right here. It hasn’t modified since Euclid, a pair thousand years in the past. It’s nonetheless round. A triangle continues to be a triangle. A sq. continues to be a sq.. Nothing goes to alter there. Betty Boop could make a comeback, however she’s not precisely at present’s character. She had an enchantment within the ‘30s or each time it was. If somebody created a brand new Betty Boop at present she could be totally different.
GamesBeat: Did you’ve gotten a selected response now after the Tetris film? How properly did that seize the story?
Rogers: There’s a bunch of issues in regards to the film. Once I learn the script I believed, “My God, this is going to be such a bad movie.” That’s what I believed. It’s as a result of I don’t know the right way to learn a script and picture what the film is like from there. I didn’t think about it. Alexey and I labored exhausting to attempt to repair it. “No, that’s not what happened! This is what happened!” All these issues. That’s once I began writing the ebook, to set the report straight.
By the point I used to be carried out writing, the film was already shot, so it was too late. And once I lastly noticed the film I used to be anticipating the worst. My God. I cried a number of instances in that film about issues that by no means occurred! They captured one thing, the sensation of one thing that by no means occurred, however it might have occurred. The entire thing about Maya and me lacking her efficiency. That in all probability occurred otherwise.
GamesBeat: Did you are feeling a way of dread going into the Soviet Union the primary time?
Rogers: Oh, yeah. Like going to North Korea. This might go badly. If I get caught, what am I going to say? I’m making an attempt to do enterprise on a vacationer visa. I didn’t precisely seem like a vacationer, sporting a swimsuit and carrying an attache case. The factor that made me a bit like a vacationer was I had a video digital camera. I might fake. I did a little bit of sightseeing. That was my cowl if I wanted one.
GamesBeat: Did you attempt to sneak into Nintendo as properly?
Henk Rogers indicators a duplicate of his new ebook, The Excellent Sport.
Rogers: Effectively, I didn’t must. I walked by way of the entrance door. That story is within the ebook. My spouse discovered that Hiroshi Yamauchi performed Go, studying {a magazine} article. I despatched them a fax on a Tuesday. “My name is Henk Rogers. I’d like to make a Go game for the Famicom. I’d like to meet you. I’m leaving for the states on Saturday.” I didn’t say I lived in Japan. I overlooked that element. However I stated, “I’d like to meet you before I go.” Wednesday I obtained a fax again. “Mr. Yamauchi will meet you tomorrow.” Whoa.
There I used to be in a gathering with Yamauchi, my first assembly performed all in Japanese. I didn’t need something to be misplaced in translation. I discovered that my interpreter wasn’t actually decoding. No matter. The dialog was very quick. He stated, “I can’t give you any programmers.” I stated, “I don’t need programmers. I just need money.” So he stated, “How much money?” I wasn’t ready for that in any respect. I simply pulled a quantity out of my head, $300,000. He reached throughout the desk and stated, “Deal.” What? That’s it? Holy shit. Now I needed to go discover the man who really made the Go sport over in England and make a take care of him. I hadn’t talked to him but. I didn’t even have a sport.
GamesBeat: Had been you conscious of all of the competitors for Tetris because it was taking place? Robert Maxwell and–
Rogers: I didn’t perceive there was actual–Spectrum Holobyte had the sport. Mirrorsoft had the sport. None of those guys have been good sufficient to suppose this was going to be a giant sport. It was considered one of 40 video games that Spectrum Holobyte was releasing that 12 months. They have been making an attempt to play up the Russian angle. They didn’t suppose Tetris was an awesome sport. It simply obtained misplaced amongst all their different video games.
I used to be already within the Nintendo enterprise in Japan. I made the connection that this was going to be an awesome console sport. When the Sport Boy got here alongside then I noticed this was going to be the proper sport for the Sport Boy. By that point everybody knew, a minimum of at Nintendo in Japan. Internally everybody was enjoying it. That’s once I went to Arakawa and stated, “You should pack in Tetris.”
GamesBeat: There’s an fascinating angle to this at present. In your story, the enterprise man is definitely the great man. Normally in sport trade tales the enterprise man is the villain and the builders are the great guys. There’s some form of battle between these two sides. It feels such as you managed to seek out some house the place the state of affairs for the developer obtained higher over time. You discovered a cheerful medium between enterprise and creation.
Rogers: I’ve nice respect for builders. I perceive. I’m considered one of them. I really feel they must be handled pretty. For instance, Alexey. He created the sport. He must be handled pretty and revered for the creation of the sport. There are different video games the place they’ve been taken away from their creators. I don’t know who created Bejeweled, however somebody did, after which it turned Sweet Crush and the whole lot else. It’s been copied and whoever created it’s by no means credited. It’s a tragic factor. I really feel proud that I used to be ready to verify he obtained the credit score.
The opposite factor is, once I first confirmed up, I appeared like a businessman. Alexey, when he noticed me, when the entire group noticed me, I appeared like some form of shyster making an attempt to make a quick buck. They spent the primary couple of hours simply interrogating me. Throughout that interrogation Alexey found out I used to be really a sport designer. That modified his angle fully. I used to be the primary sport designer he’d ever met. Within the Soviet Union there have been no sport designers. Then after all it went from suspicion to belief. We might discuss sport design.
Henk Rogers (left) and Alexey Pajitnov are the leaders of Tetris.
GamesBeat: It’s been an fascinating evolution to a degree the place builders have some extra management at present. The platforms within the early cellular days took 70% of their income. It’s all the way down to 30% now, which isn’t as unhealthy. Epic is bringing it all the way down to 12%. There’s been a development, the place builders can take extra management over their enterprise. That looks as if a part of this story as properly.
Rogers: Everybody ought to take an inexpensive proportion of the pie. The quantity of labor you set in ought to have one thing to do with the amount of cash you get out. If the sport developer spends all of their power, they need to get the vast majority of the cash. It’s exhausting work.
GamesBeat: How would you divide the ebook up? There’s the Tetris story, however there’s additionally your personal life in right here. You retired and also you’ve gone on to preventing local weather change. How a lot of that’s within the ebook?
GamesBeat: You found out a life after gaming, although.
Rogers: Oh, yeah. I’m well past that. In 2005 I had already figured that out. I discovered my missions in life. I had 100% blockage, the widowmaker. Within the ambulance I believed, “No, I’m not going. I still have stuff to do.” When folks have that occur to them, 95% of them die. I used to be one of many fortunate 5%. I survived. I’ve two stents. I walked out of the hospital 4 days later with two band-aids from the angioplasty. It was unbelievable. If I had been on the large island that day I might have died. There’s no manner they’d have gotten me wherever in time. I used to be already within the ambulance being taken for remark when it occurred. The physician stated, “When you called that ambulance, it’s the best decision you made in your entire life.”
Tetris is 40.
GamesBeat: The final time I used to be in Maui it was exhausting to seek out locations the place there was no bleached coral anymore.
Rogers: That’s just the start. That has to do with the warming of the ocean. We’re not even speaking about ocean acidification but. That’s taking place, slowly however certainly. It’s not simply coral that shall be affected. It’s going to be plankton. We’re speaking about destroying the meals chain of the ocean. Coral is one thing we are able to see. Plankton we don’t see. We don’t understand that plankton is crucial factor within the ocean.
GamesBeat: Peter Moore informed me his personal story greater than a 12 months in the past. He had a coronary heart occasion and didn’t know what was taking place. He checked out his Apple watch and it informed him he had an emergency happening. He referred to as his spouse, who knew one thing about what was happening, and he or she stated, “Stay there. I’m coming to take you to the hospital.” She saved him, her and his Apple watch.
Rogers: I’ve a little bit insert right here. That’s my blood sugar. I ate an apple this morning, and that’s sending me throughout 250. An alarm goes off.
GamesBeat: At CES this 12 months they’d mirrors that may take a look at you and decide the colour of your pores and skin. They have been calculating blood strain and blood oxygen.
Rogers: I need to create a medical gadget. You maintain it in your hand, and your fingers are touching the again of the gadget the place it may possibly sense a bunch of stuff. After which on the entrance you’re enjoying Tetris. It could actually measure your hand-eye coordination and your cognitive skill. Not solely does it have a physiological 5 minutes, but in addition a psychological 5 minutes. I feel we’ll correlate what occurs in your mind whenever you play Tetris to issues like Alzheimer’s, all these totally different psychological issues. I feel that’s going to be a medical gadget.
GamesBeat: There was an organization referred to as Skillprint that was going to observe you play video games and determine what sort of profession could be greatest for you.
Rogers: That sounds just like the Soviet Union. Work out what you’re going to be whenever you develop up and ship you to the right college and all that. Scary stuff.
GamesBeat: It turned out that video games can inform quite a bit about you, although.
Rogers: What video games can let you know is how a lot willpower you’ve gotten. I see younger folks enjoying video games, and so they’re striving to have the epic win. That epic win feeling, “Yes! I did it!” That’s how I would like them to reside their lives. We’d like an epic win over local weather change and plastic within the ocean and ending struggle. I feel video games give us observe at reaching the epic win.
GamesBeat: What do you concentrate on what video games have turn out to be? Murderer’s Creed: Shadows is out shortly. You may name that the proper sport.
Rogers: The query is, is {that a} sport? To me it’s an interactive fiction. It’s like going to a film. It’s an interactive story. A sport, to me, looks like one thing the place I’m making an attempt to mentally outpoint you, one thing like that. Initially video games have been performed between folks. Now a variety of video games are solitaire. Taking part in poker and enjoying solitaire, that’s two various things. They lump all of them collectively and name them video games. When you say a sport is a pastime, then a variety of issues generally is a sport.
Early on in my profession I vowed that I might by no means work on a sport that I didn’t need my kids to play. I’d like different folks to have that very same feeling in regards to the video games they create. In fact that cat’s out of the bag, so to talk.
The Tetris film debuts on March 31 on Apple TV+
GamesBeat: Did you suppose the Nintendo-like ambiance or design sensibility was the a part of it you liked essentially the most, versus the bigger issues that video games turned?
Rogers: I really like the way in which video games have grown. Not solely by way of magnificence and complexity, however by way of the viewers. That’s grown. Interactive leisure is so significantly better than passive leisure. Sitting on a sofa and watching a TV present, that’s the earlier era. Now, when younger folks sit in entrance of a TV, they need to work together. They need to select their path. That’s a wholesome factor. It’s a transfer up from the sofa potato.
GamesBeat: The sport trade has had a tricky two and a half years. Numerous layoffs and studios closing. What do you concentrate on the well being or state of the trade?
Rogers: Throughout COVID everybody had extra time. That point translated into video games. The trade grew and perhaps turned a little bit bloated. It’s an adjustment. But it surely’s like a course correction within the inventory market. It’s not everlasting. The factor that I feel is a bit unhealthy is that a couple of video games make all the cash. When you’re the third or fourth sport you’re struggling. It will be higher for the trade if extra video games have been creating wealth as an alternative of just some video games making some huge cash.
GamesBeat: What path do you suppose video games ought to go in to get again a few of that progress, or to turn out to be a extra rational trade?
Rogers: I like Minecraft. What’s happening on the planet, I feel–issues like TikTok or Instagram are the place individuals are spending extra time. What does that imply? They need to create one thing. They don’t need to simply watch different folks doing stuff. They need to do one thing. Video games like Minecraft, the place you create one thing, the place your mates get pleasure from what you’ve created–that turns into extra fascinating. It’s your inventive juice. If video games turn out to be one thing the place you get to create a part of it–I’ve plenty of concepts about that. However I’m out of the sport enterprise.
GamesBeat: A platform like Roblox is fascinating as a result of it feels to me like the brand new floor ground for individuals who need to break into the trade. That is the place they will do it. I’ve interviewed some CEOs who’re 23 years previous. They’ve groups of 30 folks. They have been capable of get there as a result of they’ve been making video games for 10 years inside Roblox.
Rogers: I’m engaged on a sport–I don’t name it a sport anymore. MileagePlus is a sport, however no one thinks it’s a sport. They take it significantly, so to talk. Each time I give a speech about local weather change, folks ask, “What can I do?” I say, “I don’t know what you can do. I can get up here and speak and hopefully inspire you, but you have to figure out what you can do and do that.” I understand that I haven’t helped these folks in any respect, as a result of they’re in search of recommendation.
I’m creating an app, and it’s issues to do. At first they’re small issues. End up the lights in a room with no folks. Decide up some garbage and put it within the can. Get a degree, get a degree, get a degree. When you get a bunch of factors you go up a degree. Then you definitely get greater issues to do. Do a bunch of these and so forth. It’s a role-playing sport, but it surely’s in the true world. You’re doing actual issues.
Maya Rogers is CEO of Tetris.
There are two methods to make factors. One is you do the actions, and the opposite is you create an motion. When you create an motion, put it within the system, and another person does it, you then get credit score for that as properly. It turns into a contest to see who can take advantage of actionable actions. The AI will be sure you’re not doing something silly like destroying one thing or making issues worse. It’ll vet the actions. However principally it’s as much as you to create an motion. When everyone seems to be creating actions for everybody else, I feel that’s going to trigger the world to scrub up. They might be small actions, however whenever you do one thing and understand that one million different folks have carried out it as properly, that’s a giant deal. Proper now when you do one thing no one is aware of. It’s misplaced.
GamesBeat: Do you suppose there’s an entire trade that could possibly be made out of fresh expertise and video games?
Rogers: We go from doing issues within the digital world to doing issues in the true world. AR is form of like that, however AR continues to be largely about issues that don’t exist coexisting with the true world. Right here I’m saying that there are issues in the true world that must be carried out. I don’t need to persuade you in a digital world to do one thing that you simply’re going to do in the true world. I need to do one thing in the true world. That’s form of the transition I’m in.
GamesBeat: I talked to the CEO of Nvidia in regards to the Earth-2 simulation they’ve. They take all their GPUs, put them right into a supercomputer, and that creates the most effective simulation of the Earth they will make. They use it to mannequin local weather. Their hope is they may predict local weather change for many years to return utilizing this simulation of the Earth. I requested them if they may simply repurpose this right into a sport, or the metaverse, and he stated, “Yes, we get that for free.” The by-product of doing that is you get a basis for Earth-sized video games.
Rogers: I had the identical concept, aside from Mars. The issue with Earth–the spot the place the Empire State Constructing is, who will get to construct there? What do they get to construct there? There’s a relationship between digital land and actual land that’s going to trigger battle sooner or later. Doing it on Mars, it’s a land seize. You’ll be able to have no matter you need. You’ll be able to promote land on Mars. Simply add water.
GamesBeat: The expertise that’s been going into simulations and into video games, it’s the identical expertise. It’s all of the Unreal engine, issues like that. You may make a digital twin of a BMW manufacturing unit, design that, and produce the perfected design into the true world. Then you definitely put sensors on that manufacturing unit and feed again information to the digital twin, so the digital twin will get higher. That suggestions cycle constantly improves the whole lot. It’s a gathering of video games and enterprise that I really feel like no one anticipated. Engineering issues for a greater planet may be introduced into this course of, too.
Rogers: You take a look at one thing like Gran Turismo. Race automobile drivers really observe driving in simulations. I used to be listening to a man discuss how an armored personnel provider took out a Russian tank. How did he do it? He stated, “The thing with the camera in it, I just shot at it over and over again. I’d done it in Counter-Strike.” Or no matter it’s. He’d used a way he present in a online game in actual life and took out a Russian tank.
GamesBeat: With Tetris, do you are feeling like folks develop a ability there that by some means turns into helpful?
Rogers: No, I don’t suppose it’s a ability. It’s a therapeutic factor. Tetris has the identical impact, I feel, as meditation. The issue with Tetris is that you simply play it too lengthy. When you have been to meditate for 3 hours, you’d must be a yogi or no matter. For an odd particular person, 10 or quarter-hour needs to be sufficient. We’re determining medical connections to Tetris as we communicate – the way it mitigates post-traumatic stress, they’ve figured that out. That’s one other path for Tetris, all these medical purposes.
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