Deals, drama and danger: the incredible true story behind Tetris

When he looks back on it now – gambling his house, battling Robert Maxwell, turning up in the Soviet Union on a wing and a prayer – Henk Rogers still insists that he never considered giving up. "People ask me how much naivety was involved?" he recalls. "I would say 20% naivety/stupidity and 80% determination." That may be the key to success in many aspects of life. In Rogers's case, he was a video game publisher who knew he had discovered the next big thing: Tetris, a strangely addictive puzzle in which players must arrange falling bricks of differing shapes to form a solid wall.