Tetris is a new movie that tells the story of how one of the most popular games was created in Soviet Union, and how multiple western companies sought licensing rights to publish the game on various platforms. It was race among multiple interested parties who wanted to gain the profits from this simple yet addictive game. The movie is available on Apple TV+.
Spoiler Alert: Content below may contain spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to see the spoilers, please stop reading here. Come back after watching the movie.
While the movie retells the true events around Tetris and interest by gaming companies to gain the rights, it also briefly reminds us of the Cold War and portrays the fragile state of the Soviet Union at the end of 1980s. It is also a story of greed and corruption, which is also true for many business dealings done today. It is a fascinating story to learn and ponder upon. The movie is produced well with great acting, display of historic sceneries, choice of music, and keeping the viewers engaged with the movie scene after scene. Great story, great movie. I highly recommend it to watch.
Tetris reminds of the movie The Founder, about which I recently wrote in The Founder: McDonald's Movie Based On The True Story. Like the McDonald's brand, Tetris was/is a successful brand in gaming category. There are many similarities in these two stories, but the one I found really interesting is that the salesmen played the crucial role on both. Not just salesmen, but individual who had high conviction about the brand and went all in to make it a success story. Like Ray Kroc from the McDonald's story, our "salesman" protagonist is Henk Rogers. However, Henk is more likable as a person. He is honest person, dedicated to his family, committed to his goals and stays true to his promises. Henk discovers Tetris the game during one of the trade shows where he was trying to sell another game his company made.
While Henk has been performing promoting and selling his company's games personally, he actually started by designing games and programming himself. So, he is not a regular salesman. He does have passion for computer technologies and games. When he first plays Tetris, he immediately knew it was winner. After finding out that the company promoting Tetris didn't have rights to distribute in Japan, he jumps into the idea of becoming the one who gets the rights for the game in Japan. While seeking a loan from his bank, Henk tells story of Tetris to his banker.
Tetris was created by the Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov who programmed the game just for fun. The game gets shared among other Soviet engineers or those who have access to computers and many enjoy playing it. Then the game makes to eastern European countries. Robert Stein, the owner of Andromeda Software which is based in London, from time to time travels to other countries to find games with potential and tries to gain licensing rights for cheap. That is how he discovers Tetris in Hungary. He manages to get licensing right to Tetris from Elorg, Russian government's software engineering institution for $10,000. Stein then sells the rights for the game to a bigger software company Mirrorsoft Ltd. They too eager to make some money sell the rights other companies who actually have platforms to distribute the game.
Since, nobody has the rights to sell in Japan yet, Henk makes a deal with Mirrorsoft for right to distribute the game in gaming console and arcade machines. This puts Henk in position to pitch the game to Nintendo in Japan. Nintendo CEO loves the game and offers Henk half a million dollars. But Henk had bigger plans. He manages to convince Nintendo CEO to let Henk's company to become a publishing partner with Nintendo. At the same time, Henk is trying to get Tetris going in arcade machines. Unfortunately, greed of Mirrorsoft leads them to renege on a deal with Hank and they sell the arcade rights to SEGA.
After manufacturing the Tetris game cartridges for Nintendo, Henk gets another opportunity to talk to the Nintendo's CEO. In this conversation, Henk explains how Mirrorsoft cancelled his arcade game and put his business in tough financial situation, and seeks advice. This is when Nintendo's CEO reveals something even bigger to Henk. He sets up a meeting between Henk and Nintendo of America in Seattle. When Henk is shown the prototype of the Game Boy, he is beyond amazed. He convinces the NOA executives that shipping game boys with Tetris would attract more buyers than shipping them with Super Mario. However, Henk does not have the rights to distribute the game in handheld devices. Determined that he can make this happen, Henk flies to Moscow to make a deal on behalf of Nintendo of Amearica.
This is when things about the licensing rights get even more interesting, because ELORG never sold the full rights. In their mind they only sold the rights for the game on PC. Robert Stein and Mirrorsoft were under understanding that they had the full rights for the game, even though they were not paying any royalties on the game at all. Now that all parties are aware of interest for the game in handheld devices, they all race to secure the deal with Soviet software agency, ELORG.
Robert Stein, Henk Rogers, and Maxwell Junior from Mirrorsoft without others knowledge fly to Moscow to seal the deal. Maxwell father and son are the least likable, and shady businessmen. Junior is super arrogant towards everybody, Senior is willing to utilize bribery to achieve his goals. Mirrorsoft immediately becomes KGB' favorite candidate to sell the game to, because of bribes. Nobody really cared about Robert Stein, as he was just a middleman opportunist. However, Henk was the most genuine among all and did offer fair deal. The head of ELORG implements great negotiating tactics and manages to get more for the game. However, due to the corruption he can't make the final deal with Henk, and is ordered to give the licensing right to Mirrorsoft.
Despite the threats and persecution by KGB, head of ELORG and Alexey Pajitnov take brave actions to make the deal with Henk and Nintendo happen, as Mirrorsoft had no intentions of paying anyway. Henk and Nintendo executives fly back to Moscow, get the deal done, KGB tries to stop the deal, chases them to the airport, but all end well with them escaping Moscow with the signed deal in their pocket. At the end ELORG get a much better deal than they initially wanted, Nintendo gets all the rights, Henk gets a big check.
The biggest question from this story and the lesson to be learned is that the creator of the game didn't get anything in this deal. It is crazy how often creators get cheated out of their artwork by governments and companies. Yes, under authoritarian regimes like Soviet Union, free entrepreneurship is suppressed and creators are not rewarded for their creative works. But this also is still true today around the worlds. Even in the MacDonald's story the true founders of the franchise were not given promised royalties.
Alexey didn't even expect to be rewarded for his creation. But Henk did promise that Alexey would be rewarded as well as the creator of the game. Henk, indeed keeps his promise and after the launch of the game boy, sends Alexey a present with a new game boy with his game installed and tickets to the US. Henk and Alexey join together in creating The Tetris Company and it becomes the manager and licensor for the Tetris brand.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.