Who founded Andromeda Software and pursued early Tetris licensing rights?

Robert Stein founded Andromeda Software and pursued the early licensing rights to Tetris. He encountered the game after it reached the SZKI Institute of Computer Studies in Budapest, where a local researcher had created a Commodore 64 version.

Stein recognized Tetris’s commercial potential and contacted the Soviet developers by telex, hoping to obtain rights he could license to Western publishers. A translation and communication gap led Stein to believe that he had received authorization, even though the Soviet side did not view the exchange as a completed agreement.

The later licensing saga involved Mirrorsoft in the United Kingdom, Spectrum HoloByte in the United States, and the Soviet organization Elorg. Robert Maxwell and Jim Mackonochie were important publisher-side figures, while Phil Adam helped champion the game, but none of them founded Andromeda Software. Stein’s early deal-making helped trigger the international rights dispute that shaped Tetris’s commercial history.