Tetris Maker Officially Responds to White House’s Hateful Tetris Clone

The White House’s penchant for using video games to peddle hate has largely been met with silence or inaction in the video game industry, even when it involves companies that are notoriously litigious about their intellectual property. Tetris, it seems, may be a rare exception to this disappointing trend.

On Thursday, the White House published a series of arcade games themed around the Trump administration’s bigoted political agenda. Among other things, the games encouraged players to digitally build an immigration wall with Tetris blocks and arrest virtual people of color depicted crossing the border. Most of the games were simple knockoffs of classics like Flappy Bird and Snake. Marketing around the digital initiative made more blatant references to specific brands, such as the Nintendo GameCube logo.

Though the games aren’t particularly good, they’re extremely visible and hateful. More critically, the White House arcade games are potentially fertile ground for copyright infringement cases.

One day after White House social media accounts shared the games, the company behind Tetris issued a response. On Instagram, the Tetris account said that the brand believed “in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them.” A follow-up reply to the post, also authored by the brand, clarified that the company was not involved in the creation of the controversial game.

“We take copyright infringement very seriously,” the Tetris Company added.

The company did not share what measures it would take to defend its copyright, and so far, Build the Wall is still publicly accessible. If the company does take action, it would be one of the first high-profile gaming companies, if not the only one, fighting back against the White House in a public way.

Trump uses video game imagery to trigger its base

Image: The White House / X 

In recent years, the Trump administration has made heavy use of video game branding on social media to advertise questionable political causes. Many major brands, from Halo to Pokémon, have been used by the White House in this way — but seemingly none of them sought legal action against the administration. At best, gaming companies have only distanced themselves from the White House’s antics by clarifying that they had no involvement with the campaign.

Should Tetris actually pursue legal action through a copyright claim, the White House may need to pull Build the Wall down from its website. But considering how frequently the Trump administration ignores court orders and brushes off criticism from artists, there’s little hope that the Tetris Company will effect change. For now, the company shared a message with all of its fans.

“To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community,” the post reads.