Maya Rogers on keeping Tetris immortal

• Tetris expanded into film, fashion and esports while leaving the game itself untouched.
• The Tetris Company, under Rogers, decides exactly where the brand appears, from Minecraft to a Redbull Tetris tournament.
• Rogers will take to the stage for her keynote at PGC Barcelona to talk about what makes Tetris timeless.

Founded in 1996 by Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers, The Tetris Company had spent decades defending the IP, fighting off a long line of clones and even winning a landmark copyright infringement case in 2012 against the game developer Xio Interactive, Inc.

When Maya Rogers took over as CEO in 2014, she turned that defensive posture into a strategy of expansion, taking Tetris from just a classic video game into wider licensing opportunities spanning fashion, toys and entertainment through global partnerships. 

Several console generations, a successful mobile game, 90+ licensing partners and an Apple TV+ film later, Maya Rogers has helped position The Tetris Company as a strong example of sustained business and brand management within the gaming industry.

Rogers will be joining us at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona, on June 15th and 16th, for her fireside chat to talk about all things Tetris. As a taster, we caught up with her ahead of the show.

A decade of knowing what not to touch

In 2014, Tetris was already older than many of the people playing it. It had outlasted the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise and fall of arcade culture, the console wars, the smartphone revolution and a 40-year parade of imitators. 

Where the games industry runs on reinvention, Tetris has built its success on knowing exactly what must never change - the blocks keep falling and the simple rules stay the same.

“For me it was important to expand the brand beyond video games,” says Rogers.

“Tetris is a cultural icon; it lives in pop culture in a way very few games do. Today we have expanded into film with the Tetris movie on Apple TV+, toys, apparel and location-based entertainment. When you see the pieces, you immediately want to touch them, play with them, fit them together. My question has always been: can we translate that feeling into the real world? That is what I look for in every expansion.

“What we leave untouched is just as deliberate. We honour the core gameplay while making it available wherever games are played. That discipline is what has kept us evergreen for over 40 years. We don't mess with what makes Tetris, Tetris.”

King of the crossover

Tetris’ IP strategy under Rogers is predominantly built upon licensing. Collaborations with various brands and companies showcase this approach, ranging from a co-branded Minecraft add-on, featuring 3D Tetris dungeons, to a 7-Eleven partnership that produced a Slurpee-shaped handheld gaming unit. The brand also ventured into streetwear through a "Future Vintage" collection with The Hundreds.

The mobile game follows the same model, passing from EA to N3TWORK in 2019 and then to PlayStudios in 2021. Rogers also worked with Red Bull in 2025 on the Red Bull Tetris tournament, culminating in a World Final which saw over seven million qualifier games, across 60 countries, funnel down to a Dubai final played out live by thousands of drones above the Dubai Frame.

Rogers also helped bring Tetris to Hollywood, executive-producing the 2023 Apple TV+ thriller Tetris, starring Taron Egerton, about her father's race to secure the game's rights.

Under her stewardship, Rogers has looked to ensure that every new partnership, product and adaptation of the IP remains relevant without changing the core gameplay.

“Protection has always been foundational for us," shares Rogers. "Tetris is unique in that the look and feel of our gameplay itself is protectable, meaning no one else can make a Tetris game and simply call it something else. A landmark ruling in 2012 affirmed that, and it is still one of the most cited decisions in video game IP law today.

“But enforcement is only half of stewardship. The other half is presence. If you are an iconic brand, you need to be everywhere games are played, on every platform and in every region, so the authentic experience is always the easiest one to find. And we stay close to our partners. Every licence comes with real quality standards and real collaboration, because every Tetris product out in the world either builds the brand or erodes it.

“My advice to other studios: protect your IP early and consistently. But the strongest protection is not legal at all; it is making something people genuinely return to. Tetris endures because it taps into a human instinct to create order out of chaos, and it welcomes the casual player and the hardcore player alike. Build something people come back to time and time again, and you have protected it better than any court can."

Maya brings the Tetris strategy to PGC Barcelona

Four decades on, the blocks still fall exactly as they did in 1984 - it's everything around them that's changed. Rogers unpacks how she's held that line in her fireside chat, 'What Makes a Game Timeless? The Psychology Behind Tetris' Enduring Play', at PGC Barcelona on June 15th.

“What I'm most excited to share in Barcelona is what the last 12 months have proven: a 42-year-old game can still do things nobody has ever done before,” says Rogers.

"We're entering an era where game brands can exist simultaneously as entertainment, culture, live experiences, education and social connection. The audience doesn't think in categories anymore.

Spain has become a special place for Tetris. In December, Alexey Pajitnov received the inaugural OXO Legends Award from the OXO Museo del Videojuego in Málaga and Rogers presented the book The Perfect Game before continuing on to the museum in Madrid.

"Seeing Tetris recognised as cultural heritage in Spanish museums, while Spanish drivers play it in their Škoda dashboards through AirConsole, captures the full range of what we do," says Rogers. "The same game lives in a museum and in a moving car.

"And we're not slowing down. We recently celebrated World Tetris Day with the competitive community in full force, the Blue Scuti documentary is now streaming on Prime Video and we were named Best Interactive or Digital Brand at the Licensing International Excellence Awards for the second consecutive year.

"I can't share details yet, but we have announcements coming this summer that I think will surprise people, even people who think they know what Tetris is.

"That's the message I'm bringing to PGC Barcelona. Tetris endures not because we preserved it, but because we keep finding new skies to play it in."

Don’t miss out - tickets are available here.