In 1984, Soviet Academy of Sciences researcher Alexey Pajitnov alongside Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov developed Tetris out of a desire to create a two-player puzzle game, and the game spread commercially amongst computers. In 1988 computer game publisher Henk Rogers noticed the game at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in a Spectrum HoloByte booth. Finding himself hooked to the game, he pursued the rights for the game, and knowing Nintendo planned to release the Game Boy approached Nintendo of America head Minoru Arakawa with the suggestion that Tetris was the perfect title to be packaged with the handheld. Arakawa questioned the idea, noting they planned to package Super Mario Land with it instead, but Rogers countered by stating that while a Mario title would sell the Game Boy to young boys, Tetris would sell it to everyone. Rogers was told to pursue the rights, and secured them from both Spectrum HoloByte and Atari-spinoff company Tengen, who had also secured a license at the time, to license Tetris in Japan. He additionally approached Robert Stein, who had secured permission for both companies to distribute Tetris through company Mirrorsoft, to seek rights for it to be distributed with the Game Boy.

However, after several months passed Stein had not produced the rights for the Game Boy, and Rogers learned that another person had approached Nintendo with the idea of a Game Boy Tetris. Requesting more time from Arakawa, he traveled to Moscow to speak with the USSR’s Ministry of Software and Hardware Export and Pajitnov. During this time, Nintendo approached Spectrum HoloByte on the prospect of a Game Boy Tetris, causing Mirrorsoft to send a representative, Kevin Maxwell, to Moscow to secure rights for the Game Boy version. Meanwhile, Rogers negotiated for the rights for Tetris on the Game Boy, noting in a later interview with IGN that the government officials did not understand the concept of intellectual property, and were looking for greater payment than Rogers or Nintendo could afford. However it was revealed that the Tetris property had not actually been licensed to anyone: Stein had secured the rights from Pajitnov directly and not from the Russian authorities. Russia sent a fax to Maxwell in England with 48 hours to respond, but due to being in Russia at the time Maxwell did not receive the fax, and the rights were given to Rogers. Nintendo granted Rogers publishing rights to Tetris, sued Tengen, and in March 1989, Rogers, Arakawa, and Nintendo vice president Howard Lincoln signed a contract securing rights for console and handheld distribution of Tetris. However, Tetris’s production was delayed due to the ongoing legal battle with Tengen, and the game was released in Japan two months after the Game Boy’s release there.

In an interview with IGN, Alexey Pajitnov noted the Game Boy version of Tetris as his favorite, describing it as very close to his original version.

Source: Wiki

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