How did Tetris get out of the Soviet Union?

Tetris left the USSR in stages. Its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, gave away copies, one reached Hungary, and a British software salesman, Robert Stein, pursued a licence. Stein sold rights he did not fully hold, which led to a dispute. Henk Rogers then travelled to Moscow and persuaded the Soviet agency Elorg to license Nintendo's handheld version. [1] [2]

According to the New York Post, Pajitnov could not profit from the game because the Russian Academy had signed him to a 10-year deal granting it ownership. He wanted people to see his work, so he handed out free copies to programmers and anyone with computer access. By 1986, nearly everyone in the USSR with a personal computer had played it. [3]

Live Science reports that Pajitnov sent a copy to a colleague in Hungary, where it appeared in a software exhibit. Stein, owner of Andromeda Software in the UK, saw it there. The New York Post says he noticed programmers waiting for a turn at a terminal, and that they were already adapting the game for other computers. [1] [3]

Stein tracked down Pajitnov, but the decision lay with Elorg, a new Soviet agency overseeing foreign distribution of Soviet software. Elorg licensed the game to Stein, who passed it to distributors Spectrum HoloByte in the US and Mirrorsoft in the UK. Live Science notes that the New York Times described it as the first Soviet-made software sold in America. [1]

Stein's contract covered only personal computers, not arcade or handheld versions. Even so, Mirrorsoft licensed Atari and Sega in Japan, and Rogers secured Japanese rights for computers and consoles tied to Nintendo. Elorg knew nothing of these deals. [1]

In 1989 Rogers flew to Moscow on a tourist visa without contacts, seeking handheld rights. The BBC says he needed an interpreter to find Elorg's offices, where staff were shocked by an unannounced visit. The Guardian reports that he was questioned for hours by a room of seven people, some of them KGB types, and discovered the rights he thought he held had been sold without Soviet knowledge. [2] [4]

Live Science says the Soviets were outraged when he showed them an NES cartridge, but he argued that licensing Nintendo for handheld and console versions would be profitable. Elorg agreed, and after a legal fight with Atari, Nintendo prevailed and bundled Tetris with the Game Boy. Pajitnov took no part in the negotiations and received no profits at the time. He emigrated to America in 1991, and in 1996 Rogers helped return the game's ownership to him. [1]

The BBC adds that after a week of talks Rogers won the officials over and left with rights for personal computers and handhelds. The sources differ somewhat in detail on how those rights were divided. [2]