With a game created on the pretense of stacking building blocks coupled with a passion for entrepreneurship, one local man has constructed a video game software empire for himself. Chances are that no matter what style of video game system or game genre, Henk Rogers of Blue Planet Software has had a hand in developing some part of the technology that provides hours of entertainment for you or your children.

Most don’t know this, but Blue Planet Software was founded right here in Honolulu and is one of the world’s most successful software gaming developers. However, it was a long road to arrive at that point for Rogers. "Business downturns are tough when you’re not a public company with deep pockets. Having to close companies or otherwise let people go who have become your friends is really hard," says Rogers.

Yet, through it all, he has always persevered. A perfect blend of video game fanatic and businessman extraordinaire, Rogers has been the visionary and main designer for numerous start-up companies, the most notable of which helped bring Tetris, one of the world’s most popular video games, to the United States and world market.

When asked how he came up with the idea of starting his first tech company, he says it’s always “been in his blood.” This should come as no surprise, as ever since the Holland-born Rogers was a child, he’s had a passion for math, science and computers.

Moving to the United States at age 11, he attended the prestigious math and science Stuyvesent High School in New York City. He then went on to earn a degree in computer science at the University of Hawaii before being drawn to Japan’s budding video game culture in the late 70’s.

Combining his formal training in computer science with his passion for video games, Rogers formed his first company in 1983. The company, Bullet Proof Software, was an instance success. With the development of The Black Onyx, the country’s first-ever role playing game (RPG), he helped transform the way video games were played for decades to follow.

It wasn’t until several years later, when a new friendship formed, that Rogers catapulted himself into the global gaming arena. In 1989, he traveled to Moscow, Russia to inquire about distribution rights of a popular emerging video game that was, at the time, being distributed in several countries under the color of a master license agreement, which the original licensee had not honored. That game, Tetris, was created by Alexey Pajitnov, who Rogers quickly formed a tight bond with.

Although there were two other companies bidding for the distribution rights of Tetris, Rogers’ multilingual skills and his breadth of knowledge of global gaming coupled with his friendship with Pajitnov helped him secure exclusive distribution rights on behalf of his new partner, gaming conglomerate, Nintendo.

For Nintendo, this deal squeezed its rival, Atari, out of the market and launched Tetris into mainstream gaming culture, selling more than 35 million units in conjunction with Game Boy, one of the very first hand-held gaming systems.

Always seeking new business opportunities, Rogers and Pajitnov established AnimaTek in the United States in 1990. AnimaTek pioneered such ground-breaking technologies as automatic animation of virtual characters and computer-generated procedural landscape and vegetation.