That initial coding wasn’t without its issues, though. “I had some problem with the random number generator because it always starts with the same number,” Pajitnov said. “So I had to put some other sort of randomness to start this random generator.”
Over the years, that pure randomness has evolved into the standardized “bag system,” which guarantees there will never be more than 13 pieces between those coveted long-bar “I” pieces.
“I thought the game lost something there,” Rogers said of that randomization system. Under the old system, “everybody’s watching you and you’re surviving at the top and it’s a big ‘Yeah!’ [when the I piece comes]. But if you already know the I piece is going to come up, it takes away some of that excitement, I guess.”
Our full interview has plenty of other fun anecdotes about the wooden block puzzles that inspired the game, the origin of the name “Tetris,” and disagreements over arcane details like piece rotations and “T-spin” bonuses. We also see Rogers wax a bit poetic about a game whose worldwide spread lined up beautifully (and coincidentally?) with the end of the Cold War.
“Tetris went a long way toward giving people the understanding that people behind the Iron Curtain and not behind the Iron Curtain are just people at the end of the day,” Rogers said. “We’re driven by the same thing. We play the same games. And all these things like politics don’t come close to things like friendship.”