The White House website has taken down a Tetris‑style arcade game called "Build The Wall", which tasked players with stacking blocks to erect a barrier purportedly to "protect the border".
The removal came days after The Tetris Company posted on X that it was not involved in the game's creation and that it "takes copyright infringement very seriously".
In its statement, the firm added that it believes "in the power of connection and building people together, not dividing them" and reiterated its stance on protecting its intellectual property.
The Tetris Company has a history of defending its rights, having settled an undisclosed fee with the makers of the iPhone game Mino in 2012 over similar claims of copying the classic block‑builder's look and feel.
White House officials have not responded to requests for comment, nor have they offered an official reason for the takedown.
The arcade section of the site still hosts four other mini‑games, including "Flappy Bill", a clone of the 2013 viral hit Flappy Bird featuring a bald eagle navigating past National Mall monuments, and "Rio Run", a Snake‑style game where players patrol a river and see a "Deported" count when they hit the map edge.
The games have drawn criticism from politicians, with Connecticut Democratic state senator Matt Lesser tweeting that, amid record heating‑oil prices, the administration was busy offering a "Border Tsar Tom Homan" video game.
Critics have also highlighted a pattern of the Trump administration incorporating video‑game culture into its messaging, such as an October 2025 AI‑generated image of former President Donald Trump in a Halo‑style suit and a March video that mixed footage of US strikes in Iran with clips from the Halo franchise and a voice line from Master Chief.
The video‑game references have provoked responses from industry figures, including Steve Downes, the voice actor for Master Chief, who condemned the March video as "disgusting and juvenile war porn", and The Pokémon Company International, which objected to a meme featuring a tiny Pikachu alongside a "Make America Great Again" slogan.
The episode adds to ongoing debate over the appropriateness of using popular gaming icons for political purposes.
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Category: International
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