He was forced to mortgage his house to popularize this game
The film begins in 1988 at a game fair in Las Vegas, a man named Hank Rogers was inviting visitors to play a game he developed named GO!, but no one seemed to be interested in coming to his stand, even the sales that he paid to sell his game instead went to another stand to play other people’s games, namely Tetris. As we know, Tetris is a puzzle video game where players complete a line by moving differently shaped pieces that descend into the playing field. The name Tetris itself came from the Greek word Tetra which means four
as in the number of blocks in each shape, and tennis because the creator likes tennis. Out of curiosity, Hank decided to try the game. Sometime later, Hank met his acquaintance, Eddie, a bank manager where he borrowed money to make the GO! Game. Hank explained the Tetris game that he was still passionate about even though he only played for five minutes. Not only addictive but the game is very attached to the player. It is the perfect game. Hank then asked for a loan from Eddie’s bank in order to get the game’s license in the Japanese region
that can be played on pc, game consoles, and arcade engines. Eddie was a bit doubtful because previously, Hank borrowed money for the game GO! which he failed
two brackets combined to make a square shape, and with his friends, the game was finally developed to have a shape and color, and because the goal was just to have fun, he distribute it for free, which was immediately an addictive game around people in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union at that time did not do business with games. A businessman named Robert Stein came from England and was looking for cheap game licenses to resell, and he was so amazed to see the Tetris game. He immediately made an offer to Alexey to buy the game’s
license, but according to regulations in the Soviet Union, the transaction had to go through a technology export import organization owned by the government called ELORG, which allowed Stein to buy licenses for only 10,000 dollars. After getting a deal with the Soviet Union, a year later, Stein went straight to Robert Maxwell, a billionaire and a media tycoon, and his son, Kevin Maxwell, the CEO of Mirrorsoft. Stein offered to distribute the Tetris game. Then Hank went to the Nintendo office and without further ado, went to the CEO, Hiroshi. He then showed the game and made Hiroshi try
it. Right after he tried the game, he immediately offered to buy the game for $500 thousand, but Hank refused it right away. He had a better vision by releasing the game on behalf of his own company, Bulletproof Software, and publishing it under Nintendo. He intended to borrow $3 million from Eddie’s bank, where $2 million will be used to make the game consoles and $1 million for arcade machines. After hearing all the explanations, Eddie immediately agreed, but the interest on the debt would be very high and Hank’s house will collateral. After that, Hank went back to
his house in Tokyo and told his wife, Akemi, who is also the finance director of their company, about his plan, although at first, Akemi was a bit doubtful because there was a lot at stake, Hank really convinced of its success and managed to convince her. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Alexey was visited by a man who called himself Valentin Trifonov. He was a person from the KGB or the Soviet Union’s intelligence agency. He said that the KGB would block the Tetris game because many workers played the game for hours until they forgot about their duties, on the
other hand, Kevin called Hank because he knew that the license for Tetris for the Japanese region was owned by Hank. Kevin said that his company had licensed the game for the arcade games to Sega in Japan, which means that Hank’s company would only have the license for PC games and game consoles only. Hank immediately reported this to Hiroshi and he was advised to visit the American branch of Nintendo in Seattle to meet his colleagues who could help. When he got there, he was greeted by the president and vice president of Nintendo America namely Minoru Arakawa
and Howard Lincoln. Hank’s goal to come all the way there was to see the latest breakthrough game console from Nintendo, namely the handheld game console which is none other than the GameBoy. Hank confidently said that if Mario Bros could jack up GameBoy selling up to hundreds of thousands of units, then Tetris would certainly make sell up to millions of units, and moreover, to all ages. Meanwhile, Kevin who decided to work for a game company namely Atari also tried to claim Tetris’s license for handheld consoles, so Hank immediately went to the Soviet Union to set an
agreement with the game developer. In that year, the Soviet Union still considered America to be its main enemy because of the cold war. So, no matter what, like it or not, Hank had to go there to get the rights to handheld devices. As soon as he arrived at the Soviet Union, Hank was visited by a translator named Sasha. They immediately went to the ELORG organization as a holder of the first Tetris game license to meet with the leader, Nikolai Belikov. After Hank conveyed his purpose, Nikolai said that ELORG never licensed the rights to the game
Tetris. Hanks then explained how the sequence of license purchases happened, from when Stein bought the license to ELORG, then he went to Mirrorsoft, and later, Hank got the license for the Japan region from the Mirrorsoft representative at the exhibition. Nikolai thought the copy of the game was illegal, but seeing how much Hank wanted to get the license, then he gave Hank a chance and asked him to come again the next morning. As promised, the next morning, Hank returned to meet Nikolai, Alexey, the creator of the game, and also Valentin and his right-hand man, but at
the same time, there were also Stein and Kevin who wanted to discuss the license. Turned out, all this time, Tetris was only licensed for PC and no other device. The contract didn’t mention the license to the arcade machine or console game, let alone handheld devices. Hank was asked to come again the next day, and when he left the building, he met Alexey. He then hitched a ride home to Alexey to get closer to him, and his plan went success. He was invited by Alexey to dinner at his house that night. Meanwhile, Valentin called Robert to
offer assistance in obtaining the Tetris license. Robert agreed to give $400 thousand which would be paid after he obtained the rights to the handheld device. He also asked Valentin not to tell this to his son, Kevin. That night, Hank visited Alexey’s house. He then showed a photo of his wife and four children. They then had dinner together while chatting. It seemed that Hank and Alexey were having a blast conversation because their background was the same, namely programming and making games. After that, Alexey showed Hank the original Tetris game that he made on his old school
computer. That was when they got the idea from what initially only eliminated a single line at a time, to any number of full lines per time. After the visit, Hank was ambushed by the KGB while on his way to his hotel. He was threatened so he immediately left the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the bulletproof office in Tokyo, the representatives of the Soviet Union embassy came and warned Akemi to ask her husband to return back to Japan if they don’t want to get into any problems. Meanwhile, after Hank returned to his hotel room, he found the
room in a mess. Then Sasha came and told him that his apartment was also searched by the KGB. Sasha said that Hank was considered a threat, even though he only wanted to get a license for a game, because according to the KGB, if foreign parties managed to obtain any property of the Soviet Union, it could have been the beginning of the fall of the Soviet Union in the eyes of the world. Sasha also asked Hank to stay away from all these risks and kissed him, but Hank felt uncomfortable because he was already married and asked
Sasha to leave his room immediately. The next morning, Hank called home and was picked up by his daughter Maya who asked his father to come to her concert a few days later. After that, he told Akemi to contact their lawyer to send the Mirrorsoft contract to ELORG via fax and also asked to make a new contract for Tetris handheld license. That morning, Hank, Stein, and Kevin came to ELORG to continue their discussion about the Tetris license. Stein, who got a new contract for the Tetris arcade license rights immediately signed, but it didn’t include the license
rights for handheld devices or video game consoles. Then Nikolai met with Hank. Hank then showed him the Tetris license for the Japan region that he got from Mirrorsoft as proof that he was not a fraud. After that, Nikolai was about to meet Kevin, but on the way, Valentin stopped him and said that the Soviet Union Government only wanted the game to be sold to Mirrorsoft. Nikolai was forced to accept and immediately agreed to sell the rights of the Tetris handheld globally to Mirrorsoft for $1 million which must be paid for a maximum of one week
after the agreement was signed, and when the situation was safe, Nikolai quietly took Hank to the back of the building for a one-on-one talk. Nikolai actually wanted to sell the license of Tetris for the handheld device and game console to Hank, so Hank was given a week to make an offer with Nintendo in order to counter the offer from Kevin. Nikolai did all that because he thought that Hank was the most honest compared to the other clients. When leaving the ELORG building, Alexey was already waiting for Hank. They then left by taxi. On the way,
Alexey told him that his movement had been monitored since the beginning of his arrival in the Soviet Union, and it turned out that Sasha, his interpreter was a member of the KGB. Unfortunately, Nikolai’s intention who wanted to sell the Tetris license to Hank was found out by the KGB and it didn’t take long for them to torture Nikolai to stop his intention. Long story short, Hank finally returned to Tokyo. Then he got a fax from Nikolai, saying that the Tetris game had been stopped. There was also a photo of Hank and Sasha kissing each other
that was secretly taken and used to blackmail him. It was clear that all that was Valentin’s act that forced Nikolai so that Hank would not continue his intention to buy the Tetris license. Shortly after, the officials of Nintendo called and told Hank that they couldn’t get the license for Tetris because Nintendo had been visited by Robert and Kevin who invited them to work with their company. Hank was shocked to hear that and made him frustrated when suddenly, Akemi and Maya came home from the concert that Hank didn’t attend. Problems raining down on Hank. The license
rights for game consoles and handheld devices were gone, Nintendo might sue him because of a suspect in a multi-million dollar business scam, he might lose his house for collateral, and now his household is in chaos. On the other hand, Nikolai, who was just tortured by the KGB, came to Alexey’s house to tell him that Tetris will be sold to Mirrorsoft and Nikolai would be removed from his position as soon as the deal was done, but Nikolai believed there is still a chance to fix the situation by giving a piece of paper to Alexey that must
be delivered to Hank. The next day, Alexey deliberately worked late at his office. He then triggered a fire in the trash can to distract other employees and quickly sent the letter by fax to Hang. Meanwhile, Kevin went to his father, Robert, to ask for $1 million to buy the Tetris license for the handheld devices, but Robert said that there was nothing to pay to the Soviet Union, because, without Kevin’s knowledge, he had bribed Valentin with $400 thousand. He also assured Kevin that he personally knew Michael Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, and that everything
was according to his plan. Meanwhile, Hank went to visit Howard and Minoru at Nintendo’s office to show the Forwarded mail by Alexey that no Tetris license rights had been given to Mirrorsoft and Hank was asked to immediately make an offer for it, or in other words, the rights to handheld devices and video games were still available to the whole world, and even the Atari, company that publishes Tetris in America, didn’t have the license for it, which means that there was still opportunity for them. Hank then asked the two of them to come to Moscow while
bringing the contract for the purchase of the license. Alexey, who was suspected and considered treason, was finally expelled from his office and house, even Valentin intended to harm his children and wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he still dared to fight back. When Hank, Howard, and Minoru got to Moscow, the three of them immediately met Nikolai, who was being accompanied by Sasha. An offer was made with an initial payment of $5 million. Nintendo would cover the marketing and production costs and $1 per unit sold would be given to ELORG. Nikolai agreed to the offer but
Sasha immediately refused because Tetris was considered government property. Nikolai was forced to postpone the deal while Valentin was still blackmailing Robert to pay $1 million If he wanted to get the Tetris license within the next 24 hours. Shortly thereafter, at the Mirrorsoft office, Stein came and immediately beat Kevin because he knew Kevin had made a deal behind him. Stein also said that the new agreement would make him no profit. Misunderstanding happened between them and made a fight ensue between Stein and Kevin. It didn’t take long for Robert and Kevin to fly to the Soviet Union
to meet Gorbachev. Robert expressed his desire to get the game but Gorbachev didn’t seem to care at all. Gorbachev instead thought of him and Kevin as outsiders and even think that Robert is a greedy man who only wanted to get profit. After that, at the same time, Robert, Kevin, and also Hank, Howard, and Minoru, came to Nikolai to make an offer, It was clear that the offer from Hank and Nintendo would provide benefits for ELORG and of course, the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, after some investigation, Mirrorsoft turned out to be on the brink of bankruptcy and
wouldn’t be able to pay more than what Nintendo and Hank offered. Robert still forced Nikolai to accept his offer but Nikolai, out of nowhere, beat him and immediately signed the offer from Hank and Nintendo. After the refusal. Valentin, his right-hand man, and Sasha came to ELORG to meet Robert and that was when everything was revealed. Valentin found out that Robert’s company had bankrupted and that the money he promised didn’t exist. Sasha knew that Valentin had been bribed. Kevin was disappointed after his father made a big decision without his consent and secretly bribed Valentin. Meanwhile, Valentin
would still help but he did not want any more money from him but 50% ownership of Tetris. Along with KGB agents, Valentin immediately chased Hank and his friends who were helped to escape by Alexey, while Sasha reported to Michael Gorbachev that Valentin and some other agents intended to take advantage of the Tetris game. A car chase ensued until Alexey finally managed to escape and arrived at the airport. After buying a ticket, Hank had to part with Alexey, but he made a promise that Alexey would definitely benefit from all of this. Soon Valentin and the other
agents arrived at the airport, and of course, they immediately checked the planes that were heading to Tokyo. However, it turned out that Hank took another flight to trick them. Valentin tried to chase the plane but suddenly, Sasha came with several agents who arrested Valentin and his men according to orders from Michael Gorbachev because they were all considered corrupt and abusing power. When Hank finally arrived in Tokyo, he surprised his wife and daughter at home by making a mini stage in the living room so that Maya could have a solo concert in front of him as
an atonement for his guilt for not being able to come to his daughter’s concert. He also surprised Akemi by giving her an agreement for Bulletproof Software from Nintendo worth $5 million. Long story short, in 1989, at Christmas time, the handheld device, namely the GameBoy went viral on the market, even two sales sessions were sold out in no time. Sales exceeded $110 million and would continue to grow due to one game that is very addictive, namely Tetris. On the other hand, Alexey received a GameBoy shipment from Hank, along with a plane ticket to San Francisco with
his family. Hank had fulfilled his promise. Both of them then build the Tetris company together. At the end of the film, Stein finally got the Tetris license for video game consoles and continued publishing it. Robert Maxwell, who went bankrupt, stole $900 million from his own company’s pension fund and had debts exceeding $5 billion that led to the company’s bankruptcy, and after Robert died mysteriously, his son Kevin was arrested for stealing his father’s retirement fund, and in 2014, Hank appointed his daughter Maya as the new CEO of Tetris company. After selling over 500 million copies, Tetris
became one of the most popular games of all time.
