> Coding interviews bias towards people who can code under pressure with someone looking over their shoulder, which is almost nothing like real-world coding.

I don't understand this. Why instead play a game, which, as you said, could have disadvantages because there are people that do play and people who've never played. I guess the thinking goes that by easing into a game you can see clear behaviors of people. But you can also try to ease them into coding while you are looking over their shoulder. The interviews I do, and I've seen done at my previous company and the one I'm currently at, it is similar to pair programming, and yes, there is people that is super nervous at the beginning, and that seem to need a lot of hand holding at the beginning, but after coding and having a few small wins start to ease at the test and then they can surprise you with very nice coding or interactions on solutions.