Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers on why we need more women in the games industry

“You sort of take what your dad and mom do without any consideration if you’re a child,” displays Maya Rogers, president and CEO of The Tetris Company.

When her father, Henk Rogers, introduced house an early model of Tetris on the Sport Boy in the late Nineteen Eighties, she remembers it sparking a sensation in their family, as members of the family competed in opposition to one another for top scores. But it surely was solely a lot later on that she realised how massive a deal the sport was.

Henk was instrumental in securing the rights to Tetris for Nintendo’s handheld, and would go on to type The Tetris Company with the sport’s creator, Alexey Pajitnov, in order to deal with the licensing of Tetris round the world. Maya, in the meantime, was inspired by her mom, Akemi Rogers, to hunt a profession in enterprise. “She was all about climbing the company ladder.”

Maya initially labored at American Honda after faculty. However then she acquired the alternative to mix her twin passions for automobiles and video games by securing a job at Sony Pc Leisure in Santa Monica, initially working on the Gran Turismo franchise. “I bear in mind pondering, ‘Wow, that is the place I belong’,” she remembers.

However her life took a sudden left flip when her father suffered a large coronary heart assault in 2005. “I flew again to Hawaii, and I used to be like, ‘I nearly misplaced him’,” she remembers. “That was a turning level in my life to say, ‘Can I come be just right for you? I need to be taught from you as a lot as I can whilst you’re nonetheless round’.”

Maya would go on to move The Tetris Company. Depressingly, even in 2025, it is nonetheless uncommon to see a lady in the high job at a games agency. In line with Women in Games, women make up solely round 22% of the international workforce in the games industry, and maintain simply 16% of the govt roles in the high 15 sport corporations.

“It should not be that approach,” says Maya. “Women need to be given an opportunity.”

She is keen about getting more women into the industry. “There’s so many women taking part in games, and we’re nonetheless having largely males designing games,” she says. “That does not make any sense in any respect.”

She encourages younger women to “comply with their ardour” and are available into the enterprise, and never be postpone by pondering they’re under-qualified or missing in expertise when going for jobs.

“Males present as much as the desk they usually’re sort of winging it, proper? Guys are actually good at winging it […]. Women present up overqualified, as a result of they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, am I adequate for the job?'”

In brief, she says, “We have got to place ourselves on the market, and be Okay to be weak.”

“Males present as much as the desk they usually’re sort of winging it, proper?”

Maya Rogers, The Tetris Company

When we ask whether or not Maya has personally skilled any cases of sexism in the games industry, the reply is depressingly matter-of-fact: “After all.”

“They see a youngish trying feminine, they usually do not consider you, or they do not assume that you just run Tetris, or no matter,” she says. “However I suppose it is by no means actually phased me.”

She provides that there are benefits, too, in standing out. “All people is aware of me, as a result of I am a woman, proper?”

Maya has made a degree of accelerating the variety of women working at The Tetris Company. “When my father was operating the enterprise, it was more male. And now we have quite a lot of women, and it is nice. We’re doing wonderful issues. Women can do all of it.”

Finally, she thinks we need more women in C-suite positions throughout the board, noting that DEI (variety, fairness, and inclusion) initiatives have helped in the previous. “That in itself in America at present is a factor that is being questioned,” she provides, “however I believe that was so vital to have, as a result of it did change how many individuals of variety, [of] totally different backgrounds have been allowed in the office.”

In brief, she says, “there must be one thing that’s nearly enforced to ensure that there are sufficient women in the industry.” And people women who’re already in highly effective positions need to “be on the market, being vocal, inspiring individuals to struggle for his or her rights,” she says.

“It’s at all times going to be a battle. However for those who have a look at the historical past […], how do issues change? It was the women [who] got here collectively, they usually fought for his or her rights, and that is what must occur.”

Therapeutic Tetris

Maya is especially eager to speak about the work of Professor Emily Holmes, at present at Uppsala College, who has been researching the results of Tetris on psychological well being over the previous 15 years or so.

“When she was at Oxford College, she began this analysis to attempt to see if Tetris can help with trauma and PTSD – and now she’s proven that in fact it can,” says Maya.

“So now we’re working more carefully with Professor Holmes and attempting to determine the subsequent steps of how we could make this actually a factor […] that is going to assist individuals.”

Maya says that she has additionally heard from individuals with ADHD, who’ve stated that taking part in Tetris helped them to focus earlier than exams. “We’re beginning to acquire all these tales about how a lot Tetris has helped individuals in alternative ways,” she says. “I believe we’re simply scratching the floor of what’s doable with video games and psychological wellness.”

This discovering that taking part in Tetris can really be good for you is vital, she provides, as a result of “the online game industry will get such a nasty rep,” not least via the recurrent conversations round video-game violence.

“Tetris has by no means been a violent sport,” she stresses. “It has at all times been a sport that is for everybody.”

However what’s so particular about Tetris that offers it these therapeutic properties?

“Clearing traces speaks to our innate want to need to create order out of chaos”

Maya Rogers, The Tetris Company

“There’s one thing about the blocks: it is a easy sport, nevertheless it makes you assume,” muses Maya. “There’s that one thing that clicks in you if you play Tetris and also you get into that movement.”

“Clearing traces speaks to our innate want to need to create order out of chaos,” she provides, “and basically that feels good when we really feel that sense of accomplishment. I believe that is the loop that basically helps individuals with PTSD [or] trauma.”

One other topic that is near Maya’s coronary heart is the surroundings, one thing she shares along with her father. They based Blue Startups in Honolulu round 13 years in the past as an accelerator to assist entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on supporting startups which are targeted on sustainability.

“For instance, one in every of the first corporations that we invested in was an organization known as Volta, they usually have been making electrical charging stations all through the United States,” she says.

Model new strikes

However in fact, these good-news tales do not present the entire image. The Tetris Company was based to guard the rights for Tetris, and as such the agency has spent a lot of the previous few many years sending out countless cease-and-desist letters to Tetris imitators.

However Maya factors out that the rights to Tetris have been onerous gained, noting that Alexey Pajitnov wasn’t in a position to wrestle them away from the former Soviet Union till the nineties, and she or he thinks that the capability to guard copyright is changing into more and more vital in the context of the creator economic system and the rise of AI.

“It is vital to guard and honour model legacies and types in normal. If we do not, all the pieces turns into generic,” she says.

“There might be one million different copies on the market, however there’s one thing to be stated about the one, the unique, the one that folks can actually relate to.”

Tetris has been continuously reinvented over the years via games like Tetris Impact and Tetris 99, and Maya says that in phrases of licensing alternatives for the model, video games are “at all times primary.”

However she additionally sees many alternatives outdoors games. “The people who play Tetris, whether or not [it was when they were] rising up or they’re simply discovering it now, how do they need to have interaction with the model? It is not simply via video games anymore.”

She highlights the current Tetris film on Apple TV for example – though in reality there have been efforts to get a Tetris movie off the floor over a decade in the past now, lengthy earlier than the present vogue for transmedia and big-screen video-game variations.

However what of the future for Tetris as a sport? Absolutely, we recommend, we’ve had all the doable variations of falling blocks that it is doable to have by now?

Maya disagrees. “I believe Tetris Impact is an ideal instance of [how you can] iterate on a sport that is 40 years outdated, and make it cool, and make it one thing that connects you to a brand new viewers.”

That stated, she additionally recognises that approach again in the mid-eighties, Alexey Pajitnov basically got here up with the good sport. “It is like the sport of chess, it is going to be round. It is only a matter of constructing certain that [for] every technology, and every new platform, and every new method to play a online game, Tetris is there.”

And Pajitnov, together with Henk, continues to be maintaining a watch. “They’re concerned in all the main selections,” confirms Maya. “And every time it involves sport design, Alexey could be very closely concerned, as a result of he is nonetheless a gamer. He is nonetheless taking part in all the games, he nonetheless thinks like a programmer. That is what he does, and that’s his ardour.

“So so long as they’re in a position to get entangled, they are going to be concerned. And it is nice, as a result of generally we may need a brand new licensee or a brand new developer come on board, and we may need Alexey come and discuss to them. And for them, it is like seeing God.”

When all is alleged and performed, it is heartening to assume that behind the company behemoth that Tetris has grow to be is the story of a permanent but unlikely friendship.

“Henk and Alexey, they’re like two individuals which are as totally different as may be,” says Maya, “however they’ve this frequent language, they usually consider in one another, they usually belief one another.

“And that is one in every of the causes why Tetris has been profitable. It was primarily based on this handshake of those two males that got here from very totally different backgrounds – they usually trusted one another as a result of they liked games they usually’re each programmers. And that love and that relationship continues to be there at present.”