Alexey Pajitnov, who created the ubiquitous game in 1984, opens up about his failed projects and his desire to design another hit.

He prefers conversations about his canceled and ignored games, the past designs that now make him cringe, and the reality that his life’s signature achievement probably came decades ago.

The problem is that that guy created what is probably the biggest, most timeless simple video game in history. Your chances of repeating that are really low.

It’s like you discover fire at 21. The chances of doing it again? Not high. You could maybe do other successful things, but it’d be nearly impossible to do something as big again.

There’s an entire genre of fantastic arcade/versus puzzle games not named Tetris. And that whole genre lies forgotten in ruins now. The one game that survived the longest was Puyo Puyo, but ironically, you can blame Tetris for killing that IP in the end.

I wish any developer luck in trying to do anything at all with this genre, give me something new and I will be first in line to buy ten copies. But I don’t think Pajitnov, or anyone else for that matter, will ever find even 1% of the success Tetris did. I just don’t think audiences still want this genre anymore, they just want Tetris and only Tetris.