Alexey Pajitnov

Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov (Russian: Алексе́й Леони́дович Па́житнов, regularly Alekséi Leonídovich Pázhitnov,

born 1956) created Tetris with Vadim Gerasimov and Dmitry Pavlovsky. Under his employment contract with the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he received a regular paycheck instead of royalties (similar to "work made for hire" under modern copyright law). He and Henk Rogers went on to found The Tetris Company in 1996.

Pajitnov joined Microsoft as their first staff game designer in 1996. He worked on games for the Microsoft Entertainment Puzzle Collection, MSN Zone, and Xbox Live Arcade before leaving the company as a staffer in 2004. In 2005 he began collaborating with WildSnake Software to release a new line of puzzle games, resulting in Dwice (2006) and Marbly (2013).

His favorite version of Tetris is Tetris Zone.