Tetris says it had no role in White House ‘Build the Wall’ game

The Tetris Company has distanced itself from a White House online game that bears resemblance to its classic puzzle game and involves building a wall to stop migrants from crossing the U.S. border, according to Bloomberg. The company stated on Friday that it had no involvement in the creation of "Build the Wall," one of five games released by the White House this week with themes related to President Donald Trump's administration.

Tetris emphasized that it takes copyright infringement extremely seriously and believes in bringing people together rather than dividing them. The "Build the Wall" game challenges players to construct a barrier using blocks that resemble Tetris pieces as pixelated figures advance, depicting the goal of protecting the border from an incoming crowd.

Conversely, another game called "Rio Run" mirrors the popular mobile game Snake and features a white-haired character gathering individuals who cross the border, with each person contributing to the player's deportee score. The other White House-released games touch on the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" initiative and the Trump Accounts savings program.

The games were made available through Arcade.gov, which the White House promoted using animated clips inspired by loading screens from Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo. One animation even altered the logo of Japanese video game company Sega into "MAGA," a reference to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. Microsoft, Xbox, Sony, PlayStation, and Nintendo declined to comment on the matter, while Sega acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide one.