Tetris knockoff ‘Build the Wall’ is one of six new games hosted on the White House website.
The Tetris Company had no hand in the Trump administration’s new immigration-themed Build the Wall game, according to a post on the Tetris Instagram account. The game is one of six new arcade titles released by the White House on Thursday and clearly supposed to be a clone of Tetris.
“At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together,” the company’s post says. “To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community.” In the description of the post on Instagram, The Tetris Company goes on to note that it “was not involved in the creation of Build the Wall” and that it “takes copyright infringement very seriously.”
Build the Wall tasks players with stacking and slotting falling bricks into a slowly growing wall, not unlike Tetris. The only difference is successfully completing a line of bricks doesn’t clear them from the board, and instead the wall only grows larger in the hopes of keeping out an oncoming “zombie horde.” If the title wasn’t clear enough, the wall’s placement near an ill-defined “Southern Border” makes Build the Wall‘s anti-immigration stance fairly explicit. Building a wall across the entire US-Mexico border is a policy goal that’s shared across President Donald Trump’s two terms and still in the works.
When Engadget asked The Tetris Company to comment, it reiterated that it wasn’t involved in the creation of the game and “did not authorize or license the Tetris brand or intellectual property” for Build the Wall. “For more than 40 years, Tetris has brought people together across generations and cultures through play and joy. The objective of the game has always been to stack with purpose to clear as many lines as possible. We are currently reviewing the matter.”
While strange in the context of the American presidency, releasing a collection of browser-based games is in line with the Trump administration’s approach to online communication and its disregard for copyright. The White House and other government agencies have tried to maintain an online presence that skews gaming-savvy, like using Halo memes to promote ICE recruitment. These attempts at engagement bait through aping pop culture — or outright using an artist’s music without a license — have also frequently led to DMCA takedowns. As Tetris isn’t the only property the White House is ripping off, it’s possible all of these browser games could face a similar fate.
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