Henk Rogers, the man who helped bring Tetris to America, has a new mission: Save the planet

SEATTLE — It’s among the most-played video games in the world and it’s coming up on its 40th anniversary. 

Tetris became a global phenomenon after American Henk Rogers made a historic deal with the Soviet Union, convincing them to give up their rights. 

Rogers teamed up with Nintendo, forever changing the handheld gaming market. 

The same Rogers is now on a new mission. 

He went on the record with KING 5’s Joyce Taylor to discuss his newest project and why he hopes to change the world again. 

Taylor: For people who don’t know the story behind Tetris and your connection, give us the Cliff Notes version.

Rogers: I was a publisher of computer games in Japan, looking for computer games around the world. I was at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, and I found Tetris there.

Taylor: What was it about this game that you said this is going to be a huge hit?

Rogers: When it came to the Tetris machine, I played, I went away and did other games, and then I came back and played again. When I came back for the fourth time, I knew there was something special about this game. It was so simple, and yet it was so like, oh, I want to play more. And I was right.

Taylor: They’ve now made a movie about how it is that you connected with the creator, Alexey in Russia. It’s a very complicated, very risky, kind of gutsy move. How did you put that all together? 

Rogers: I’d made a handshake deal with Mr. Arakawa, the president of Nintendo. He said, ‘Why should I include Tetris? I’ve got Mario.’ And I said, ‘If you want little boys to buy your Game Boy, include Mario. If you want everyone to buy your Game Boy, include Tetris.’  So we made a deal right there.  

Taylor:  You knew it would be the game changer? Literally, it turned out to be. 

Rogers: None of us did. You know, the game itself looks too simple. 

Taylor: I read it’s on 65 platforms. More than that, more than half a billion downloads. It’s 35 years old, plus 40. We just celebrated our 40th anniversary, and it is so addictive for people. How do you explain that? 

Rogers: There’s something about Tetris which is creating order out of chaos, and I think that that is a pleasure center for people. You know, all the other games, mostly other games are destructive, and this game is constructive. And so I think that that has a lot to do with why it appeals to women. Over half of our players are women.  

Taylor: So how does a video game developer move into this sphere of saving the world? 

Rogers: So it’s 2005, I find myself in an ambulance from where I was playing Tetris to Straub Hospital in Hawaii with what I found out later was 100% blockage of the widow maker. They rolled me into the ER when we got there. I mean, there was no formalities. The doctor said, ‘Do you mind if we operate? Sign here.’ I was still conscious. Signed here. And I have two stents.

Taylor: There’s a reason they call it a widow maker. 

Rogers: Yes, 95% of the people who have this particular malady die. So I’m the lucky 5%. Incredible. 

Taylor: That was life-changing. 

Rogers: Oh, it’s life-changing. Are you kidding me? It was like, ‘What just happened?’ The moment I’m supposed to die, I say, ‘No, I’m not going. I still have stuff to do.’ And I decided I was going to find my mission in life, and the first mission came to me in the back of a newspaper. It says, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re going to kill all the coral in the world by the end of the century.’ That’s crazy. And I said, ‘No, we’re not allowed to do that.’ Maybe it kills all the plankton. If it kills all the plankton, we’re talking about killing everything in the ocean, that is a disaster of biblical proportions. So mission number one is to end the use of carbon-based fuel. 

Taylor: Blue Planet Foundation was born out of that, yes, and is now part of the Blue Planet Alliance.

Rogers: The vision is to create a world in which humanity and nature live in harmony. That is something everybody can agree to. 

Taylor: So, what does that look like in terms of how you create that, how you execute that in the world in which we currently exist?

Rogers: It’s so simple, I can’t believe that people don’t get it. You know, it’s all about just making a decision. I decided for the Blue Planet Foundation to end the use of carbon-based fuel in Hawaii because Hawaii is where I lived. The biggest use of carbon-based fuel in Hawaii is just making electricity. Hawaii is the mecca of renewable energy. We’ve got the best solar with the southernmost state. We’ve got trade winds, which means we have 95% of the time the wind is steadily blowing from the same direction. And we have geothermal. We have volcanoes. This is like boundless energy under the big island.  

Our big success was in 2015 when we passed a mandate. Hawaii was the first state to have a mandate of 100% renewable energy. In our case, by 2045. Hawaii is it 36% today? 36% renewable energy – incredible. 

Taylor: And other states have followed suit.

Rogers: California came up with 100% by 2045. Washington state soon followed with 100% by 2040 because you guys don’t like to lose to California.

Taylor: What happens if we don’t do this?  

Rogers: We suffer. The world suffers. Our children and grandchildren suffer. 

Taylor: There are some in Washington who are talking about turning back regulations of the EPA, undoing climate change policy. That’s real. 

Rogers: It doesn’t matter (if) you don’t believe in climate change. Some people think the Earth is flat. The evidence is against you. Climate change is going to be solved by us, by the people, not the United Nations, but the united people.  

Rogers will soon release a book of his story in his own words. “The Perfect Game: Tetris: From Russia with Love,” which will set the record straight, as he puts it, about the real story behind the deal that changed the gaming world.