Back in the 1990s, Microsoft released a bunch of casual 16-bit games for Windows over a period of a few years. These titles were released in physical boxes dubbedMicrosoft Entertainment Pack for Windows, and were simply also known asWindows Entertainment Pack(WEP). Personal computers at home still weren't extremely common back then, so the purpose of these collections was to offer casual games that could be played on office computers during breaks, while also promoting PCs as devices that weren't boring enterprise machines and could be used in home setups and small businesses too. Although Microsoft released four "numbered" packs in this series, we now know why the first pack had a bit of a shoddy box.
This story once again comes from the mind palace ofMicrosoft veteran Raymond Chen, who also highlighted that the first collection was called "Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows" without the "1" suffix, because at that time, no one knew if further games would be financed. Indeed, the initiative had practically no budget at that time, and no big name publishers were involved because Windows hadn't established itself as a gaming platform at the time. They reportedly weren't copy protected either, and each game author just got 10 shares of company stock as a reward.
But perhaps the more interesting part of the story relates to Microsoft slapping on a "Now includesTETRISfor Windows!" red sticker on the box rather than properly printing it on the box with proper screenshots of the game. The reason for this was that while boxes for this pack were being printed, Microsoft still hadn't secured the rights to includeTetrisin it. These negotiations were still in flux and there was a chance that they could fall through.
If they did fall through with Microsoft already plasteringTetrisacross the physical packaging, it would have to destroy those boxes and have them redesigned and printed again. So rather than risk this expense and operational fiasco, it decided not to mentionTetrisat all.
Eventually, thedealcame through, and rather than getting the first batch of boxes printed again, Microsoft simply patching on pre-made red stickers on the box to highlight the inclusion ofTetris.
Although later editions of the packaging did includeTetrisin the box art and even inserted the "1" suffix - since other packs had come out since then -, this piece of Microsoft history just shows how scrappy the company was in its (relatively) early days. While many games in these entertainment packs became iconic, likeTetris,Freecell,Minesweeper,Jezzball, and more, and were even bundled in Windows in later editions of the OS, if you have one of the original boxes with theTetrissticker on it, you should hold on to it, since it's probably ultra-rare.