By Hasan Ali Almaci

Alexey Pajitnov gets a lot more attention these days but he's still not as well known as his most famous creation. In the mid 1980s Pajitnov, while working in a computer research lab in communist Russia, designed a devilishly addictive puzzle game that would soon inundate the industry. 
 
Originally, the game only worked on the antiquated computer it was developed on, but as soon as it started spreading across the campus, Pajitnov knew that Tetris was something special. 

The intervening decades have been good to Tetris - if not, for the most part, Pajitnov himself. It's one of the most recognizable games ever created, but few are aware of its bedraggled past, a story of lawyers and licensing that spans years and continents. 

To find out more about how Tetris came to be and what it meant to its creator, we went straight to Pajitnov, to hear in his own words what creating a 
video game icon was like. 

We also spoke to Henk Rogers, an entrepeneur often said to be close to Nintendo 'Godfather' Hiroshi Yamauchi, whose name is unfamiliar to most Tetris players but without whose help they'd never even have heard of the game. 

What follows is their story, as both Pajitnov and Rogers talk to Kikizo in these exclusive interviews.

Alexey Pajitnov Interview

Kikizo: You grew up in Moscow, right? 

Pajitnov: Yes, yes. It's my motherland you have to understand, I like it here. 
 
Kikizo: Well, could you tell us a little bit more about that? About what you did and the schools you went to, the education you got before everything started, mid-'80s 

Pajitnov: Well, there's nothing special about my life. I was just a normal Moscow schoolboy. And then I graduated high school and went to a local institute. It's like a university - it was a technical university. It is called Moscow Institute of Aviation, I graduated from it in 1979 and started working for the Moscow Academy of Sciences, in the computer centre. I worked in computer science research, writing some programs for the computers there. All my life, I liked to play games, and I started programming games. At one point, working at my computer, I wrote the code for a game called Tetris. That's the true story. 

Kikizo: Did you write anything else before that? Any other games? 

Pajitnov: Well, yes. I wrote several games, several 
puzzles, and Tetris was just one of them. The other puzzles weren't very interesting. I published some later. 

Kikizo: Were you pretty much free to do what you wanted in your research, or were you really restricted? 

Pajitnov: Basically, I had my own working plan, and I had some work to do. All the games and puzzles were done in spare time. I had enough freedom, actually, because basically we spent very long hours in our job places, and we were able to do all our work. And we had extra time to use the computers. 

Kikizo: The computers, what kind of computers were those? 

Pajitnov: At that time I worked with lots of different computers from different countries, with different processors. I did work in the lab, which was full of all kinds of different stuff, and there I wrote whole programs for different kinds of hardware. In particular we did work with our first personal computer. That was still the era of mainframe computers. Big stuff on the whole. But at some point we got the very first load of personal computers, which stayed on my desk. I was very excited about that. 
 
Kikizo: And Tetris was made on an Elektronika 60 computer? 

Pajitnov: Yes, that's what I'm talking about. It was small. It was a type of desktop computer. Well, basically, it had 64KB memory, and [laughs] it had just an alphanumeric screen, so it was kind of strange. 

Kikizo: Did you have access to Western computers like the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64? Those were things that were up-and-coming in the US and Europe back then. Or an MSX? 

Pajitnov: Well, we had the MSX a bit later, maybe four or five years after that. At that time we had some of the very first PCs in the computer center. We had several business-type PCs. I think they were Japanese PCs. But I did follow them. Me personally, I didn't have them. So I worked with the other hardware. 

Kikizo: Did you have access to the work being done in the West, or were you mostly shielded from that? 

Pajitnov: I saw the computers, and most of the games I saw on PCs were - well, at that time it wasn't very big. But I saw Pac-Man, I saw Q-bert and a few other games like that. 

Kikizo: It's funny you should mention Pac-Man because from what I understand the creator of Pac-Man [Toru Iwatani] was in the same situation you were. He was being paid a salary, he made a game that was really, really big all over the world, and he didn't even get a bonus for it. 

Pajitnov: I think that was the typical situation. Pac-Man was a great game. I think it was quite a big achievement. Actually, I had a friend with Pac-Man, and he was playing it over and over again and he started writing his own version. I didn't understand why he was doing that at all so I asked him and he said: "When I play this game, I feel like some sort of alien intellect plays this game with me. I can't believe that this is all random so I wanted to write it myself to understand how it works." [Laughs] 

Kikizo: That's a great story! So then Tetris came along. It took a few years before it became really big; for the first few years it just spread throughout Moscow, to other communist countries, and then it spread to the West. Did you have any knowledge of the way it was growing? 

Pajitnov: Not exactly, because the way the software was distributed was just the coding and copying. You'd write a program for a friend, and within a couple days you'd see it everywhere. So basically, there was no way to track it. That was the way things happened back then, but I can probably say it spread much quicker than two years. As soon as I finished it my first version was on the Elektronika 60. It was just a Russian computer. And when I released that version, meaning when I gave the code to my friends, in a few weeks I saw it in every place that had a Elektronika 60. And then I realized that the game was not bad and people found it interesting. So I converted it for PC, in 1985, so we could make it look pretty. And afterwards we decided to go ahead and put the PC version out there and it spread out really quickly. It was a question of just a couple of months. 
 
Kikizo: But it did take a couple of years for a deal to be made to get it distributed in the West. 

Pajitnov: Yes, all the licensing was another story. That was a long time ago. 

Kikizo: Well, the licensing was an entirely different story, apparently, because there were a lot of troubles, with a lot of companies thinking they had the license. Were you aware of what was going on there? Were you involved? 

Pajitnov: Yeah I was involved. They kept me involved with that. It was lots of trouble. But lots of words have been written about the licensing troubles and everything that went wrong there and I don't really like to talk about that because when I think about those things I lose my sense of humour.

Kikizo: OK. We'll stop that part there, then. You did keep one great friend through it, right? Henk Rogers. 

Pajitnov: Exactly, yes. He came to Moscow in 1988, I believe, looking for the rights for handhelds, for Game Boy. He honestly thought he had the rest of the rights for it, for Japan at least. He published games for Japanese computers, and he did publish them for Nintendo, on the Famicom, which was kind of disputable license wise. 

Kikizo: Because there was Tengen as well. 

Pajitnov: Yeah, Tengen thought they had the rights as well because it was supposedly sub-licensed to them. Henk published his version in Japan. But that deal was a different story license wise as well. But he came to Moscow just to buy the handheld rights. 

Kikizo: And, of course, it proved to be a really, really great synergy for Nintendo and Tetris. 

Pajitnov: Yeah, Tetris was a pretty liked game because of the Game Boy. Those two were kind of born for each other. 

Kikizo: Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. The Game Boy would have never been that popular without Tetris, and Tetris would have never been that popular without. 

Pajitnov: Yes, that is absolutely true. It's like they were made for each other. 

Kikizo: So that's a three-way relationship that still exists today. Nintendo, you and Henk. 

Pajitnov: Yes, we still try to keep together. 

Kikizo: What is your involvement these days with the Tetris Company? Henk is the president of the company, right? 

Pajitnov: Yeah, I'm one of the founders of the Tetris Company and I am an adviser. We have the quality control meetings for the games. I do not work on the games directly but because we want to keep the game pure we have these meetings to discuss the upcoming Tetris games. We don't want to give it too much diversity, because we want to keep the title straight, you know? So we look at the new versions and give the approval and try to keep the standards all Tetris games have to keep.

Kikizo: Did your life change in any big way after '88, when you were still in Russia? 

Pajitnov: Oh yes, of course. First of all, I decided I wanted to be a game designer, and so I became a game designer. Eventually I quit my job at the computer centre and became a freelance in Moscow and designed games for different companies. Later on I moved to the United States, in '91, and founded a new company called AnimaTek and tried to keep it and published several games there. Later on, I joined Microsoft in '96, and I did work for seven years at Microsoft as a game designer, and I published several games there. And now I'm freelance again. That's my story. 

Kikizo: Could we talk a little bit about AnimaTek? 

Pajitnov: At AnimaTek we developed a kind of interesting software called El-Fish. It wasn't a pure game, but it was kind of very strange software, in between everything. It was partially a game, partially a sort of scientific system for artificial selection. Partly it was kind of a 3D screen saver. So it was quite a bit of everything. And it wasn't very successful, because it kind of appeals to human creativity, but there aren't too many creative people around, you know? It was a little bit early for its time because it needed a higher-end PC. And creatively there wasn't really anything on the market like it at the time. 

Kikizo: I'm wondering, do you know Yoot Saito? 

Pajitnov: Yoot Saito? Who's that? A designer? 

Kikizo: Yeah, a Japanese game designer. Apparently El-Fish was one of his influences in designing Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast. 

Pajitnov: I see. Well, El-Fish was done very well - at least it was an experiment many appreciated very much. Later on we did another game called Ice and Fire that failed. It was a 3D shooter, and everyone forgot about it. Me personally, I didn't like this game but still, it was a part of our history. And later on AnimaTek started working more on technology and made several graphical software systems. But I wasn't very interested in working with technology alone. I just wanted to make games. So I left the company and went to Microsoft.

Kikizo: What year was that? 

Pajitnov: '95 or '96 I joined Microsoft. 

Kikizo: So, while you were working at Microsoft, you still had a game for the N64? 

Pajitnov: Ah, yes, we did Tetrisphere, but that was a kind of contract work, and I kind of continued at my master job. That's why I kept looking around and I could do contract work. 

Kikizo: So Microsoft had no problem with you working for Nintendo? 

Pajitnov: I think Microsoft hired me after I was done with that Nintendo work. It was just contract work though. It wasn't that they prohibited me from doing work for others. 

Kikizo: So from Microsoft then you worked on Night Moves, Clockworks, Microsoft Entertainment Pack... 

Pajitnov: ...No, no. Clockworks and Breakthru - those games were not my games. I didn't make those but they were brought to the market by Spectrum Holobyte. They wanted my name on there saying Alexey Pajitnov Presents. Night Moves however was my game. I designed it and Spectrum Holobyte published it. I think this was in '92 or '93. Then I started working on Microsoft Puzzle Collection. Not all the games on there were mine but four of them were. Then I did a game called Mind Aerobics. After that I made a game called Pandora's Box. Later on I got involved in several projects at Microsoft, as a simple level design or whatever. But later on I joined the Arcade (Online games) team, which was a large unit that did several games for them, including Hexic.
Kikizo: Talking about Hexic brings me to an observation of mine. A lot of people don't know you've done work on all these games. A lot of people play Hexic HD on the 360 and they have no idea it's one of your games. 

Pajitnov: I'm not very good at marketing, but this was Microsoft's decision, not mine. 

Kikizo: So it's not like it's a conscious decision of yours to keep your name off the product? 

Pajitnov: Oh, no, it just happened. I created everything, it's there, they just didn't use my name for advertisement, that's it. I don't know for what reason because for Pandora's Box they did it and for Hexic they didn't. I didn't mind it either way. They pay my salary you know. 

Kikizo: I was wondering about it because in the past we have seen that they put your name on the box to push a title and we see examples these days where they slap the name of a designer on the box of a freeware PC game conversion so they can sell it by associating said designer with a game he had little do with, like Every Extend Extra on PSP, for instance, where the game gets sold on Tetsuya Mizuguchi's star power. 

Pajitnov: [Laughs] Well Spectrum Holobyte tried to do something like that with me, like I mentioned a bit before. That is what publishers sometimes do and it is all part of the marketing. Like I said, I don't mind if the games I get attached to are really good games and I don't get involved into what marketing does. I like to make games so that is what I do and they do their job. Sometimes that doesn't work out the way you want but I am not a specialist in marketing so I don't get involved in that. Whatever marketing asks, I do. If they want my name on the box, sure, if they don't want it on there, I don't mind. 

Kikizo: You won the GDC game design challenge this year. Will you be competing again next year? 

Pajitnov: That left me a little bit confused. They called me and asked me to compete at the challenge and I didn't understand completely. I wasn't aware I would be competing against other people so that's why my presentation was so poor. 

Kikizo: But you did win. 

Pajitnov: Yes, but the other guys, they had made these great and funny presentations. I liked the one by Harvey Smith especially. He had a great and well thought out story line. It is too bad nothing will be done with it though. This is a big problem with American industry. They have these great ideas and creativity but they never pursue it and it stays in the conceptual phase.

Kikizo: Going back to Russia, there has been a huge shift in the social structures in Russia and life has changed dramatically for everyone. So what time in Russia do you feel was the best for you? 

Pajitnov: Well, I don't know. I like Moscow. I like the city. Love walking around and doing stuff here with friends and relatives. And then I head back to the United States to work. 

Kikizo: Do you still see most of your friends from back when you made Tetris? 

Pajitnov: Well some of my old friends and colleagues, yes, but there are a few I have lost track of because they have passed away, moved out of the country or other things like that. I have lots of other friends too who stayed here and had nothing to do with Tetris or my work, childhood friends, school friends, etc. People who I try to stay in touch with and who I love visiting when I am here in Moscow. 

Kikizo: And in Hawaii there is Henk Rogers. How often do you visit him? 

Pajitnov: I visit him several times a year. We are good friends and we discuss our work as well as what we would like to do and ask each other's advice. He has a very interesting project right now for instance and I am wondering if I should get involved in it or not, because while the project is very interesting it is not my genre and not the sort of thing I usually do. 

Kikizo: Can you tell us a bit more about that project he is working on? 

Pajitnov: Its sort of like Second Life but on Mars. There are a lot of things that can be improved with Second Life and he wants to make something like that but done right. Maybe I could get involved making game activities to use in that virtual world, but I really don't know yet. 

Kikizo: After you left Microsoft there was an announcement by Wild Snake Software that you would start working with them on some projects. What is the status on those? 

Pajitnov: Ah, yes, those are business friends of mine. They live near Saint Petersburg and they formed this company, and I formed a partnership with them a while ago. They were one of the developers of Microsoft Puzzle Collection, and since then they formed Wild Snake and we have worked together. They are a bunch of creative guys and I love to work together with them. They are a pretty small company but hopefully you will enjoy the games we are working on. 
 
Kikizo: Are there any particular game designers that you admire? 

Pajitnov: Oh, yeah. I really like Will Wright. I love his games. Actually he is a good friend of mine and every time we meet we talk a lot about games. I really like Sid Meier and have spent a lot of time playing his games on my PC, and I love the games by Shigeru Miyamoto. I like tactical stuff a lot. 

Kikizo: Can you tell us a bit more about your current projects? 

Pajitnov: I have a couple of projects with my friends at Wild Snake. I plan on refreshing one of my old games and I am working on another Microsoft project, but its still too early to talk about those because they are still in the early stages.

Kikizo: OK, why not work on the game you won the GDC game design challenge with? 

Pajitnov: [Laughs] I have no intention to do that myself but if somebody called me and said, "Alexey I will program that game for you, I will make it for you," sure. [Laughs] But I don't think anyone will do that, sadly. 

Kikizo: So what games do you play in your spare time and which ones do you enjoy the most? 

Pajitnov: I don't have a constant preference so I usually play two or three different puzzle games and recently I have been playing a bit of World of Warcraft. 
 
Kikizo: Oh, what level are you on and with what character? 

Pajitnov: I have several characters. As a game designer I am always interested in what makes something work in a game so I tried all kinds of characters. My favourites are hunters. I have a few hunters. I have a mage. Haven't done too much on the Horde side. 

Kikizo: Isn't it dangerous for a designer to play World of Warcraft because, lets face it, it kills off productivity. 

Pajitnov: Well I didn't spend that much time in it and I know how to handle addiction. A big part of its appeal is the interaction with other people so I am interested in how they tune the game with the different characters and I played the game to see how that worked. They did a pretty good job there. I am not saying it's perfect or excellent but it works. 

Kikizo: What inspires you to make games? 

Pajitnov: Some things just come to me and with most of the games it's the influence of other games. Maybe that sounds very boring but that's how it usually goes. Sometimes the inspiration is positive and sometimes it is negative. An example would be Hexic, for instance. That was inspired by Bejeweled - in a negative way. I was playing Bejeweled and it frustrated me, I felt that the game wasn't designed properly so I tried to make the game the way it was supposed to be. 
 

Kikizo: Did you feel that Bejeweled 2 was a better game then? 

Pajitnov: Yes, definitely. Bejeweled 2 was a much better game. It corrected the faults of the first one and was much more fun to play. 

Kikizo: What puzzle games at other companies have caught your attention lately? 

Pajitnov: Well I haven't played too many puzzle games recently. I saw a few interesting games on DS recently but I didn't purchase a DS yet. 

Kikizo: Didn't Nintendo give you one? 

Pajitnov: No. 

Kikizo: Why not? They should. It's got a Tetris game after all. 

Pajitnov: I didn't ask for one. But its pretty cheap. maybe I should buy one when I am back in Seattle. I just didn't have time, I guess, with all the travel recently. 

Kikizo: That's what I do when I have a long distance flight though - bring my DS along and play some Tetris on the flight. 

Pajitnov: Oh, no. I try to rest. I sleep when I fly. 

Kikizo: Did you ever imagine Tetris would become as big as it did? 

Pajitnov: Well I realized early on that it was a good game but of course no one could have predicted that it would become that big. 

Kikizo: What are your impressions about today's consoles (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii)? 

Pajitnov: I really hated consoles. From the very beginning I was a PC person. And now I love the consoles and I believe that they are the driving force now. I believe that the introduction of game-tailored controllers will become really big. Those are things I am looking forward to. 

Kikizo: Do you mean specialty controllers like the Wii has? 

Pajitnov: Yes, but much more than that. Special controllers tailored to specific games. 

Kikizo: What's your opinion on the consoles themselves? 

Pajitnov: I worked on the 360 and my next game is for the 360 as well. It is a really nice platform. I like the PS3 as a platform as well, even though I don't own one yet. And I am looking forward to the Wii. I don't have it yet either but I really want one so I will buy one once they are readily available. 

Kikizo: What are your thoughts on the DS and the PSP? 
 
Pajitnov: Well, I am mostly outside of the handheld business. I am more of a PC and console person, but I did try them and the PSP has several good puzzle games but they didn't inspire me enough to purchase one yet. And the DS I will probably get soon. 

Kikizo: Your games focus on pure playability rather than flashy effects, bombastic sound and high end graphics. 

Pajitnov: Yes but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate games that excel in those areas. I like my games to be good, of course, but as a designer that is what I can do so I try to do my best on my strengths rather then try something which I know other people can do better then me. Maybe other people can take my games and make them look really pretty. [Laughs] 

Kikizo: Speaking of that, a lot of people have complained about seeing Tetris in their dreams, or closing their eyes and seeing the blocks, or walking around and starting to think about lining up the blocks to clear lines, etc. How do you feel about getting into people's heads like that? 

Pajitnov: [Laughs] Yes, if you play something for a long time that is what happens to you. I don't think it's something inside the games. I had it with World of Warcraft as well where I saw battles play out, so it's nothing special about Tetris I think. It can happen with all games. 

Kikizo: In 1990 I couldn't get the Tetris Game Boy music out of my head. I could hear it playing in my head at the least expected times. 

Pajitnov: [Laughs] Yeah, sometimes music can have that effect too. 

Kikizo: And do you have a final message for the readers? 

Pajitnov: No, I never have messages, sorry. I don't want to act like I know more than other people and teach them and lead them and tell them what they should do. Come on. 

Kikizo: Well that is a great final message. 

Pajitnov: Just play the games and enjoy yourself.

Henk Rogers Interview

Kikizo: You were born in Holland right? Are you still Dutch? 

Henk Rogers: Yes, I still have Dutch citizenship but since last year I have dual citizenship - I finally got US citizenship last year. 

Kikizo: Why did you wait so long to get US citizenship? 

Rogers: A variety of reasons really. I lived in Japan for quite a while, and there is a lot that can be improved with the US policy right now, so I finally decided to become American and be part of making the changes the country must go through. 

Kikizo: Can you tell us a little bit more about your family background? 

Rogers: Well, both of my natural parents were Dutch Indonesian and my stepfather is American. Thats how I got the name Rogers and ended up in New York, at the age of 11. 
 

Kikizo: Did you stay in touch with the country you were born in? 

Rogers: Yes of course, it's been a while now so I need to get back as soon as possible. 

Kikizo: Why is that? 

Rogers: I love Dutch Licorice, I need to go back to stock up on that stuff. 

Kikizo: [Laughs] So you moved to the US and that's where your love for videogames started? 

Rogers: Exactly. At college we had one of those early big mainframe computers. You know, those things with huge tapes and stuff on. I was fascinated with them and started to play computer games and tried writing them myself. This was before games became commercial programs and computers only really existed at universities and banks. 

Kikizo: After graduating you decided to move to Japan. Why did you decide to do that? 

Rogers: [Laughs] Well, during my studies there was this Japanese girl I really liked and when she went back to Japan I chased after her and ended up staying in Japan for like 18 years. 

Kikizo: The old boy-meets-girl-and-chases-her-around-the-world story, then. [Laughs] How good are your Japanese skills? 

Rogers: I can speak it quite well but I refuse to learn kanji. 

Kikizo: Any particular reason for that? 

Rogers: The way I see it is that everything can be done with a Roman alphabet and Arabic numerals. Kanji on the other hand forces you to memorize thousands of symbols, and when you do that with a growing kid it stifles creativity because the brain gets trained to memorize rather then be creative with a smaller subset of symbols. It limits the creativity by forcing you into memorizing rather than creating so I always refused to learn it out of principle. I feel it's counterproductive and stifles creativity. 

Kikizo: And in Japan you started your own videogame company right? 

Rogers: Yes I started Bullet Proof Software, and we actually produced the very first Japanese RPG. 

Kikizo: When did you leave BPS, and why? 

Rogers: I left BPS in 1995 and moved to San Francisco because there was this unstoppable thing coming up called the Internet, and I wanted to be part of that emerging, growing industry. I saw its potential and wanted to become part of its growth and Japan back then was the wrong place to be to take advantage of that growing market. 

Kikizo: Why was that? 

Rogers: Mostly because in those days in Japan NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph) had a telecommunications monopoly and because the Internet in Japan used to be prohibitively expensive; the Internet access prices were insanely inflated, so I went to the Bay Area where everything was happening. 

Kikizo: That makes sense. Let's talk about Tetris a bit then. 

Rogers: OK. 

Kikizo: The stories about Hiroshi Yamauchi's shark-like business practices are the stuff legends are made of, so how did you as a foreigner convince someone who was so feared in the industry to license Tetris from you? 

Rogers: That wasn't entirely my achievement. I made my pitch to Mr Yamauchi and he decided to ask Shigeru Miyamoto about it. So he calls Miyamoto into the room and asks him about this Tetris game and Miyamoto tells him that a lot of the people at Nintendo are playing the game during their lunch breaks or even when they should be working. At that point I think Mr Yamauchi realized the potential of the game. 

Kikizo: So what do you think about Yamauchi and the reputation he has? 

Rogers: I have great respect for him as a businessman and we get along great. It's been a few years now but we used to play Go - it's a Japanese game of strategy and many old-school Japanese business people think it sharpens your business skills. 

Kikizo: We heard that you get along with Mr Yamauchi much better than his own daughter and son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa [former president of Nintendo of America], do. 

Rogers: Where do you hear such things? 

Kikizo: As a member of the press we sometimes hear things we shouldn't from drunk company representatives at press events and parties. 

Rogers: [Laughs] OK. Well, yeah, you would have to ask the Arakawas about that. 

Kikizo: Before you convinced Mr Yamauchi, though, you had to convince Arakawa for the Tetris deal, right? 

Rogers: Sort of. I actually did the Tetris on Game Boy deal with Mr Arakawa. We didn't have a final deal and instead I had talked with him about licensing Tetris for handhelds, and he gave me his word that he would do the Tetris deal through me. 

Kikizo: So you went to Russia to try to get a license for the handheld rights of the game even though you didn't have a final deal yourself? 

Rogers: Yeah, you could say that. 
 
Kikizo: And then you had to fight off Mirrorsoft, which was part of the late Robert Maxwell's media empire? 

Rogers: Actually Mirrorsoft was in the hands of Robert's son, Kevin Maxwell. I don't think he got involved in it too much himself and as it turned out Mirrorsoft had been sub-licensing the Tetris license unjustly to several other companies, so we used that as leverage. There also was a lot of pressure on ELORG [Elektronorgtechnica, former Soviet Ministry of Software and Hardware Export] to give full licensing rights of the game to Mirrorsoft but Perestroika and Glasnost had started to get a hold of old Soviet Russia so we managed to get the license after all. And after that Arakawa had to decide on the Game Boy pack-in game between Tetris and Mario. He obviously made the right choice. [laughs] And the rest is history.