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 recreation — 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 wished to set the document 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 sort 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 deal with local weather change earlier than it’s too late for us. And so he wrote The Good Sport: Tetris, From Russia With Love, the story of his life and the way Tetris got here to be so beloved all over the world 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 e-book chronicles Rogers’ groundbreaking contributions to the gaming business, his relentless pursuit of innovation, and his deep dedication to sustainable vitality.
A local of the Netherlands, Rogers moved to New York Metropolis in 1964, the place he attended Stuyvesant Excessive College and programmed his first pc. After majoring in pc 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 business.
He based Bullet-Proof Software program and developed The Black Onyx, Japan’s first role-playing recreation, which grew to become the No. 1 recreation in Japan in 1984. His discovery of Tetris on the 1988 Client Electronics Present in Las Vegas set the stage for certainly one of gaming’s most dramatic enterprise offers. Touring to Moscow, he navigated tense negotiations with the Soviet Union, outmaneuvered company giants, and finally secured the hand-held rights for Nintendo’s Sport Boy, a transfer that endlessly reshaped the gaming business.
I’ve recognized 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 recreation designer himself, managing Tetris in order that its fruits may very well be shared in a good approach. 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 associates at this time, 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 vitality, and in 2021, he launched Blue Planet Alliance, which helps communities worldwide break away from fossil fuels.
Our interview went to numerous sudden locations. He talked about what’s a recreation, what video games was once, what video games have grow to be, and the place they might go subsequent.
Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: So many issues have been stated and informed about Tetris through the years. 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 numerous sweat into Tetris. After I took over Tetris in 1996, all of the Tetrises earlier than that had been accomplished uncontrolled. The Sega Tetris, the Nintendo Tetris, they had 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 may onerous drop it, and as soon as it lands you may manipulate it and transfer it round. While you watch the video games, it’s like two totally different video games. The individual enjoying this recreation would have a tough time enjoying that recreation, and vice versa.
I stated, “That can’t be. I have to standardize this.” I put numerous thought into how I may make one rotation system to suit each gamers. I really employed any individual 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 best way it really works now could be that when the items fall, they appear to be 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 approach.
GamesBeat: Going again even earlier, there’s a lot to the Tetris story, whenever you first went to satisfy Alexey and so forth. Had been there belongings you by no means informed different individuals, whether or not in interviews or wherever else? Is it that you just 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 keep in mind. I’ve accomplished so many interviews. Alexey taught me the best way to drink Russian-style. I went to his home a variety of occasions. We’d have what they name cognac, but it surely’s really Armenian or Moldavian brandy, ararat. They arrive in tall, skinny bottles. We might end the bottle, after which we might swap to vodka and end that. I keep in mind one time he wished to go for straight alcohol, the stuff he used to wash his keyboard. I stated, “No, I’m not doing this.” I used to be actually drunk, however I wasn’t silly sufficient to try 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 best way to drink with Alexey. I’m nonetheless struggling to get away from it. We’ve toned down. At any time when 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 thus far into successive generations of players now that there are most likely 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.
Rogers: It’s a part of the sport business now. Only a few video games like which are nonetheless round. Pac-Man, I don’t know if it’s nonetheless round. I don’t know if you should purchase Pac-Man on the iPhone or not. The character is iconic, however the recreation shouldn’t be one thing everybody remembers.
GamesBeat: Why did you name it The Good Sport? What was the argument for that?
Rogers: There are a number of arguments. I’m not saying Tetris is the proper recreation, however the e-book is The Good Sport. It’s my seek for the proper recreation. One other approach of it, I created the primary RPG in Japan. That may very well be the proper recreation. I’m not saying Tetris is the proper recreation. It’s implied. The right recreation is a recreation that you just 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 adjustments, 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 this time’s character. She had an enchantment within the ‘30s or at any time when it was. If somebody created a brand new Betty Boop at this time she could be totally different.
GamesBeat: Did you may have a selected response now after the Tetris film? How effectively did that seize the story?
Rogers: There’s a bunch of issues in regards to the film. After I learn the script I assumed, “My God, this is going to be such a bad movie.” That’s what I assumed. It’s as a result of I don’t know the best way to learn a script and picture what the film is like from there. I didn’t think about it. Alexey and I labored onerous 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 e-book, to set the document straight.
By the point I used to be accomplished 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 occasions 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 could have occurred. The entire thing about Maya and me lacking her efficiency. That most likely occurred differently.
GamesBeat: Did you’re 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 appear to be a vacationer, sporting a go well with and carrying an attache case. The factor that made me a bit like a vacationer was I had a video digicam. I may 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 effectively?
Rogers: Effectively, I didn’t should. I walked by way of the entrance door. That story is within the e-book. My spouse came upon 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 omitted that element. However I stated, “I’d like to meet you before I go.” Wednesday I bought a fax again. “Mr. Yamauchi will meet you tomorrow.” Whoa.
There I used to be in a gathering with Yamauchi, my first assembly carried out all in Japanese. I didn’t need something to be misplaced in translation. I came upon that my interpreter wasn’t actually deciphering. 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 recreation over in England and make a take care of him. I hadn’t talked to him but. I didn’t even have a recreation.
GamesBeat: Had been you conscious of all of the competitors for Tetris because it was occurring? Robert Maxwell and–
Rogers: I didn’t perceive there was actual–Spectrum Holobyte had the sport. Mirrorsoft had the sport. None of those guys had been good sufficient to assume this was going to be an enormous recreation. It was certainly one of 40 video games that Spectrum Holobyte was releasing that yr. They had been making an attempt to play up the Russian angle. They didn’t assume Tetris was an ideal recreation. It simply bought 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 ideal console recreation. When the Sport Boy got here alongside then I spotted this was going to be the proper recreation for the Sport Boy. By that point everybody knew, at the least 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 this time. In your story, the enterprise man is definitely the nice man. Normally in recreation business tales the enterprise man is the villain and the builders are the nice guys. There’s some form of battle between these two sides. It feels such as you managed to search out some area the place the scenario for the developer bought higher over time. You discovered a contented medium between enterprise and creation.
Rogers: I’ve nice respect for builders. I perceive. I’m certainly one of them. I really feel they should 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 grew to become Sweet Crush and every thing 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 ensure he bought the credit score.
The opposite factor is, once I first confirmed up, I regarded 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 recreation designer. That modified his angle fully. I used to be the primary recreation designer he’d ever met. Within the Soviet Union there have been no recreation designers. Then after all it went from suspicion to belief. We may discuss recreation design.
GamesBeat: It’s been an fascinating evolution to some extent the place builders have some extra management at this time. The platforms within the early cellular days took 70% of their income. It’s right down to 30% now, which isn’t as dangerous. Epic is bringing it right down to 12%. There’s been a development, the place builders can take extra management over their enterprise. That looks like a part of this story as effectively.
Rogers: Everybody ought to take an affordable share of the pie. The quantity of labor you place in ought to have one thing to do with the amount of cash you get out. If the sport developer spends all of their vitality, they need to get nearly all of the cash. It’s onerous work.
GamesBeat: How would you divide the e-book 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 e-book?
Rogers: The e-book actually took a piece of my life. I used to be spending 4 or 5 hours a day writing once I was in writing mode. That’s numerous time. My regular day is Zoom, Zoom, electronic mail, electronic mail, that form of factor. To dam out 4 or 5 hours a day, it was fortunate that I had COVID. I wasn’t assembly individuals or flying all over the world. I used to be staying put. That gave me an opportunity to do it. I don’t know if I’ve one other e-book in me. We’ll see. Chapter two is about local weather change, The Good Local weather or no matter it could be.
GamesBeat: You found out a life after gaming, although.
Rogers: Oh, yeah. I’m well beyond 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 assumed, “No, I’m not going. I still have stuff to do.” When individuals 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 unimaginable. If I had been on the massive island that day I’d have died. There’s no approach they’d have gotten me wherever in time. I used to be already within the ambulance being taken for commentary when it occurred. The physician stated, “When you called that ambulance, it’s the best decision you made in your entire life.”
Anyway, within the restoration room I began to consider what it meant. I’d simply offered my firm a month earlier than. My spouse had sufficient cash. She didn’t want me anymore. My youngsters had been all out of school. They didn’t want me anymore. I discovered my missions in life. The primary one was at the back of the newspaper. “We’re going to kill all the coral in the world.” I moved to Hawaii from New York Metropolis once I was 18. From the concrete jungle to the seaside for a yr, browsing and diving. No approach are we allowed to kill all of the coral on the planet. I’m not going to let that occur.
GamesBeat: The final time I used to be in Maui it was onerous to search 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 occurring, slowly however absolutely. 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 an important factor within the ocean.
GamesBeat: Peter Moore informed me his personal story greater than a yr in the past. He had a coronary heart occasion and didn’t know what was occurring. He checked out his Apple watch and it informed him he had an emergency happening. He known as his spouse, who knew one thing about what was happening, and she or he stated, “Stay there. I’m coming to take you to the hospital.” She saved him, her and his Apple watch.
Rogers: I’ve a 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 yr that they had mirrors that will take a look at you and decide the colour of your pores and skin. They had been calculating blood strain and blood oxygen.
Rogers: I need to create a medical system. You maintain it in your hand, and your fingers are touching the again of the system the place it will probably 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 capacity. Not solely does it have a physiological 5 minutes, but additionally 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 system.
GamesBeat: There was an organization known as Skillprint that was going to observe you play video games and work out what sort of profession could be finest for you.
Rogers: That sounds just like the Soviet Union. Determine what you’re going to be whenever you develop up and ship you to the correct 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 inform you is how a lot willpower you may have. I see younger individuals 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 stay their lives. We’d like an epic win over local weather change and plastic within the ocean and ending warfare. I feel video games give us observe at attaining the epic win.
GamesBeat: What do you consider what video games have grow to be? Murderer’s Creed: Shadows is out shortly. You can name that the proper recreation.
Rogers: The query is, is {that a} recreation? To me it’s an interactive fiction. It’s like going to a film. It’s an interactive story. A recreation, to me, appears like one thing the place I’m making an attempt to mentally outpoint you, one thing like that. Initially video games had been performed between individuals. Now numerous 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 recreation is a pastime, then numerous issues generally is a recreation.
Early on in my profession I vowed that I’d by no means work on a recreation that I didn’t need my youngsters to play. I’d like different individuals 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.
GamesBeat: Did you assume 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 grew to become?
Rogers: I really like the best way 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 individuals 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 business has had a troublesome two and a half years. A number of layoffs and studios closing. What do you consider the well being or state of the business?
Rogers: Throughout COVID everybody had extra time. That point translated into video games. The business grew and perhaps grew to become a 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 just a few video games make all the cash. When you’re the third or fourth recreation you’re struggling. It could be higher for the business if extra video games had been making a living as a substitute of just some video games making some huge cash.
GamesBeat: What path do you assume video games ought to go in to get again a few of that development, or to grow to be a extra rational business?
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 individuals doing stuff. They need to do one thing. Video games like Minecraft, the place you create one thing, the place your pals get pleasure from what you’ve created–that turns into extra fascinating. It’s your inventive juice. If video games grow to be one thing the place you get to create a part of it–I’ve a lot 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 flooring for individuals who need to break into the business. That is the place they’ll do it. I’ve interviewed some CEOs who’re 23 years previous. They’ve groups of 30 individuals. They had been in a position to get there as a result of they’ve been making video games for 10 years inside Roblox.
Rogers: I’m engaged on a recreation–I don’t name it a recreation anymore. MileagePlus is a recreation, however no one thinks it’s a recreation. They take it significantly, so to talk. At any time when I give a speech about local weather change, individuals 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 individuals in any respect, as a result of they’re on the lookout for recommendation.
I’m creating an app, and it’s issues to do. To start with they’re small issues. End up the lights in a room with no individuals. Choose up some garbage and put it within the can. Get some extent, get some extent, get some extent. When you get a bunch of factors you go up a degree. You then get larger issues to do. Do a bunch of these and so forth. It’s a role-playing recreation, but it surely’s in the true world. You’re doing actual issues.
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 effectively. It turns into a contest to see who can take advantage of actionable actions. The AI will be sure to’re not doing something silly like destroying one thing or making issues worse. It’ll vet the actions. However mainly 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 wash up. They might be small actions, however whenever you do one thing and understand that 1,000,000 different individuals have accomplished it as effectively, that’s an enormous deal. Proper now should you do one thing no one is aware of. It’s misplaced.
GamesBeat: Do you assume there’s a complete business that may very well be made out of fresh know-how 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 principally 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 should be accomplished. I don’t need to persuade you in a digital world to do one thing that you just’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 very best simulation of the Earth they’ll make. They use it to mannequin local weather. Their hope is they might predict local weather change for many years to come back utilizing this simulation of the Earth. I requested them if they might simply repurpose this right into a recreation, 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 thought, apart 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 may have no matter you need. You may promote land on Mars. Simply add water.
GamesBeat: The know-how that’s been going into simulations and into video games, it’s the identical know-how. It’s all of the Unreal engine, issues like that. You can also make a digital twin of a BMW manufacturing unit, design that, and convey the perfected design into the true world. You then 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 every thing. It’s a gathering of video games and enterprise that I really feel like no one anticipated. Engineering issues for a greater planet will be introduced into this course of, too.
Rogers: You take a look at one thing like Gran Turismo. Race automotive drivers really observe driving in simulations. I used to be listening to a man discuss how an armored personnel service 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 method he present in a online game in actual life and took out a Russian tank.
GamesBeat: With Tetris, do you’re feeling like individuals develop a ability there that in some way turns into helpful?
Rogers: No, I don’t assume 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 just play it too lengthy. When you had been to meditate for 3 hours, you’d should be a yogi or no matter. For an bizarre individual, 10 or quarter-hour must 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 functions.
