Tetris creator Aleksey and few of his company were bought out and borught to Seattle in early oughts by Microsoft and they made a bunch of games for MSN Zone. There was one called Hexic that I remember him posting into a Russian email alias with an offer to take whoever got 5 black pearls first to dinner with him, which I think took out od a good portion of Russians on that channel out of circulation for a day or two (I got up to 3 of those pearls but could not make it past that).

I had dinner with him at his house later via connections through my incredibly sociable and connected mother, he was a delight, very, very clever, and had lots of physical puzzles that he invented and made himself. I am glad he made money off it eventually.