Trump White House Pulls Down Tetris-Like Game, in Which You Had to Stop
The White House has removed the “Build the Wall” game — a Tetris knockoff in which players were tasked with fortifying the southern U.S. border to keep out illegal immigrants — after the company that owns the rights to…
The White House has removed the “Build the Wall” game — a Tetris knockoff in which players were tasked with fortifying the southern U.S. border to keep out illegal immigrants — after the company that owns the rights to the popular title issued a statement saying it “take[s] copyright infringement very seriously.”
Trump’s White House on Sept. 3 launched arcade.gov, featuring a collection of five MAGA-themed games. That included “Build the Wall” (with the subtitle “ZOMBIE BORDER SIEGE”). The foreign invaders from the Mexican side of the border bounced off the wall a player built and disintegrated, until the blocks were stacked above the upper bound and the game ended with the message “BORDER BREACHED.”
As of Tuesday, the “Build the Wall” game was no longer available on the White House game site, as first spotted by gaming site Kotaku.
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Tetris Holding LLC is the owner of Tetris rights worldwide, and the Tetris Company is its exclusive licensee. In a statement posted to social media Friday, the Tetris Company said: “At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them. To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community.”
The company also noted it “was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall.’” When asked whether the Tetris Company was considering taking legal action with respect to the White House’s game, a rep last Friday said the company was “reviewing the matter.”
Meanwhile, as of Wednesday afternoon, another anti-immigration game called “Rio Run,” which is patterned on the classic snake video-game genre, was still available on the White House game site. In that game, users “patrol the line” along the Rio Grande and collect illegal immigrants in a long chain behind a white officer in order to expel them from the U.S.
The other games on the site are “Flappy Bill” (like “Flappy Bird”), in which users fly a bald eagle down the National Mall; “Trump Savings Tycoon,” where players use a net to catch bags of cash and other prizes to “Fill your kids’ Trump accounts”; and “Supply Line,” in which players sort food items on a school-lunch conveyer belt to “Make America Healthy Again.”
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