How did the fight over Tetris rights turn into a real Cold War spy thriller?

The answer

Tetris was created in 1985 by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov at the Moscow Academy of Sciences. Because he worked for a state institution, the Soviet government owned the rights. What followed was a Byzantine international rights battle. Multiple companies - including Mirrorsoft (UK), Atari, and Bullet-Proof Software (Japan) - believed they had secured legitimate licenses, but the rights had been sold and resold through overlapping and sometimes fraudulent deals. Nintendo's Henk Rogers flew to Moscow in 1989 during the Cold War to negotiate directly with Soviet officials, entering the country on a tourist visa since a business visa would have drawn KGB attention. Rogers secured the handheld rights for Nintendo, making Tetris the killer app for the Game Boy (1989). The saga involved KGB surveillance, forged documents, and Soviet bureaucratic chaos. The 2023 film Tetris, starring Taron Egerton, dramatized this saga.