Rainier in 2017. Political views After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pajitnov issues a statement condemning the war that called Vladimir Putin a "soulless crazy dictator" and that "his hateful regime will fall down and the normal peaceful way of living will be restored in Ukraine and, hopefully in Russia." Games Awards and recognition In 1996, GameSpot named him as the fourth most influential computer game developer of all time. In March 2007, he received the Game Developers Choice Awards First Penguin Award. The award was given for pioneering the casual games market. In June 2009, he received the honorary award at the LARA - Der Deutsche Games Award in Cologne, Germany. In 2012, IGN included Pajitnov on their list of 5 Memorable Video Game Industry One-Hit Wonders, calling him "the ultimate video game one-hit wonder." On 2015, Pajitnov won the Bizkaia Award at the Fun & Serious Game Festival. See also BreakThru!, video game endorsed by Pajitnov ClockWerx, video game endorsed by Pajitnov Notes References External links Alexey L. Pajitnov profile at MobyGames Tetris Creator Claims Free and Open Source Software Destroys the Market. web-archives Video Interview with Alexey Pajitnov at GameZombie.tv deadlink Tetris — From Russia with Love, BBC documentary (website). 1956 births Living people Game Developers Conference Pioneer Award recipients Moscow Aviation Institute alumni Microsoft employees Russian activists against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian computer programmers Russian emigrants to the United States Russian inventors Russian video game designers Scientists from Moscow Soviet computer scientists Tetris Video game designers