The making of Tetris, because the tagline to the Apple Unique film goes, is a “story you couldn’t make up”, and now the real-life lead character from that movie has written a ebook about his extraordinary life in video video games, and past.
From infiltrating the Soviet Union, to befriending the president of Nintendo, and becoming a member of the struggle for a sustainable atmosphere, Henk Rogers has definitely lived a life worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. The Good Sport: Tetris, From Russia With Love, a brand new memoir as vibrant because the puzzle traditional’s seven tetrominoes, gives a riveting recount of his journey that shall be entertaining for everybody, however additional particular for video video games followers.
After transferring to Japan and marrying his spouse within the late Nineteen Seventies, Rogers based Bullet-Proof Software program and developed The Black Onyx, one of many first profitable Japanese-language RPG video games. Bullet-Proof went on to turn out to be some of the profitable Japan-based recreation publishers of the period, however its destiny was turbo charged after Rogers found the Russian puzzle recreation Tetris.
Impressed by the bits missed – and altered – by the 2023 film, Rogers explores in better element the unimaginable story behind how he secured the rights to the unique Tetris. There are fewer automotive chases on this model, however it’s no much less dramatic. The occasions main as much as the Sport Boy version of Tetris, and the way Rogers travelled to Soviet Union to unravel an online of contract tomfoolery, on the backdrop of KGB spies and fierce company rivalry, is persistently entertaining and informed right here in unprecedented element.
Key to the Tetris story is after all the Tetris creator himself, Alexey Pajitnov. In an impressed alternative, The Good Sport options annotations from Pajitnov all through, in his personal damaged English, which imbues Henk’s tales with a spirited character. In a single standout sequence, Rogers remembers “the elevator from hell” in Alexey’s house constructing, just for the Russian to defend the “poor” machine in an editorial intervention, claiming it labored completely tremendous for him and his neighbours.
Maybe essentially the most gripping sections for followers element Henk’s relationship with Nintendo – particularly, its president, the long-lasting Hiroshi Yamauchi, who managed the Sport Boy creator with an iron fist for greater than 50 years. Henk was one of many nice Nintendo president’s solely associates, and Good Sport affords an extremely uncommon glimpse at what Yamauchi was like as an individual exterior of labor hours.
In enterprise, Yamauchi had a ferocious fame as a formidably highly effective man to not be crossed. However one way or the other, via a mixture of braveness, luck, and profitable enterprise offers, Rogers earned his friendship. It’s instructed that his assured nature might have first impressed Yamauchi, although the pair in the end had very completely different personalities.
At Nintendo, in case you crossed the president, you had been immediately fired, however Rogers remembers how he was in a position to get away with far more than most, probably as a result of he was considered as a foreigner. “He as soon as requested me to promote him Tetris,” he writes. “I mentioned I’d commerce Tetris for Mario, making it clear to him that Tetris meant to me what Mario meant to Nintendo. You struggle hearth with hearth.”
Crucially, the pair shared a standard ardour for the traditional board recreation Go and would usually schedule enterprise conferences on the finish of the day so they might play and discuss candidly in regards to the online game trade. Ultimately, Henk’s relationship with Yamuachi led to particular therapy from Nintendo, who allowed him to order recreation cartridges sooner than others, as they knew he would in the end ask their boss anyway.
In Good Sport, Rogers recounts how, after he approached Yamauchi for assist bettering Tetris’s initially sluggish Famicom gross sales, the president instructed his gross sales staff to drum up extra orders, and even permitted Henk to place Nintendo’s seal of approval on the sport field – nearly extraordinary for software program not developed by Nintendo.
Regardless of the hazard of disagreeing with the boss, a common supervisor later pleaded with Rogers to not use the Seal of Approval, explaining that if he did, each different writer could be asking for it and Nintendo would wish to open an entire new testing division to cater to demand.
Later, Rogers remembers how he and Yamauchi ultimately drifted aside, as Yamauchi retired and Rogers returned to the West, and the suggestion that Nintendo’s president died and not using a significant reconciliation together with his good friend makes for sombre studying.
Past video video games, Rogers’ memoir reads simply as very similar to a blockbuster. The native Dutchman incessantly travelled the globe, relocating from Hawaii, to Japan, and again once more. In 2005, a month after promoting his cell video games firm for thousands and thousands of {dollars}, he suffered a 100% blockage of the widow-maker, the most important artery within the coronary heart, which he was later informed had a survival price of simply 5%.
The expertise impressed Henk to spend the remainder of his years doing one thing that mattered to him: defending the local weather of his beloved Hawaii. He later based a number of neighborhood and sustainability-oriented organizations and firms, together with Blue Planet Basis, which led the marketing campaign to make the Hawaii the primary state with a 100% renewable power legislation.
He even turned his gaze skyward, founding area exploration enterprise the Worldwide MoonBase Alliance. He’s additionally chairman of the Pacific Worldwide Area Middle for Exploration Techniques (PISCES), and owns HI-SEAS, a 1,200 square-foot Mars habitat the place crew members dwell in Mars-like situations for as much as 12 months to assist area businesses be taught from their experiences.
When you might imagine you already know Henk Rogers’ life story then, there’s greater than sufficient right here to energy a Hollywood sequel.
The Good Sport: Tetris, From Russia With Love is accessible now and accessible at Amazon.
