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Video reportTHE TETRIS COMPANY

A Soviet researcher wrote Tetris. For 12 years, he got no royalties.

ERP LEADERS desk ·
Video: The Tetris Company
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Soviet researcher Alexey Pajitnov wrote the game in his spare time at a Soviet Academy of Sciences computing centre in Moscow. The Tetris Company dates it to 1984. Friends passed copies around on floppy disks.

Under Soviet law he could not sell it. By a formal arrangement, his computing centre held the world rights for ten years.

In February 1989, Henk Rogers, who ran a software company in Japan, flew to Moscow uninvited on a tourist visa and came back with the Game Boy rights. He told TIME in 2014: "If you want little boys to buy your machine include Mario, but if you want everyone to buy your machine, include Tetris."

On Game Boy alone, Tetris sold well over 35 million copies. The rights reverted in 1995. After about a year of talks with the state agency Elorg, Pajitnov and Rogers formed The Tetris Company in 1996. Newsweek reported that Pajitnov received no royalties until then. The company now reports hundreds of millions of copies sold.

If your team built the internal tool everybody now runs, write down who may license it, for which uses and for how long. Owning the code is only the first question.

AI-generated illustration with narration by an AI voice.

What the captions say

  1. This is the story of how Tetris's creator waited 12 years for royalties, for a game now counted in hundreds of millions.
  2. Alexey Pajitnov was a salaried researcher at a Soviet Academy of Sciences computing centre in Moscow.
  3. In his spare time, he wrote a puzzle game. The Tetris Company dates it to 1984.
  4. Pieces dropped. Full rows vanished. Pajitnov said, "There was no reason to keep it on the screen."
  5. There were no computer stores to buy programs, he recalls. Friends got copies on floppy disks, and Tetris spread.
  6. He could not sell it under Soviet law. By formal arrangement, his centre held the world rights for 10 years.
  7. In February 1989, Henk Rogers, who ran a software company in Japan, flew to Moscow uninvited, on a tourist visa.
  8. He wanted Tetris for Nintendo's new Game Boy. Rogers said, "If you want everyone to buy your machine, include Tetris."
  9. He got the Game Boy rights. From July 1989, North American Game Boys came with Tetris in the box.
  10. On Game Boy alone, Tetris would sell well over 35 million copies. Pajitnov still got no royalties.
  11. The rights reverted in 1995. After about a year of talks with the state agency Elorg, he and Rogers formed The Tetris Company. Royalties began.
  12. Today, The Tetris Company reports hundreds of millions of copies sold, plus over half a billion mobile downloads.
  13. Asked about his first payments, he recalled a watch. He said, "I bought a $100 watch. So, I'm not a very good spender."

Sources

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