White House Officially Removes Racist ‘Tetris’ Clone After Legal Threat

It turns out that major video game corporations can occasionally prompt the Trump administration to reverse course. Shortly after launching a new “Arcade” portal on its official website featuring xenophobic browser games, the administration quietly removed a Tetris clone from the lineup.

On September 4, the White House introduced five titles to Arcade.gov, spanning content from juvenile to explicitly discriminatory. Among them was Build the Wall, a blatant Tetris derivative featuring the description: “Protect the border from the coming horde.” Beyond the unauthorized plagiarism and nativist messaging, the title suffered from severe technical flaws, failing to clear lines when horizontal rows were completed.

Shortly after the administration published the game and promoted it via the official White House X account, The Tetris Company publicly condemned the hate speech and intellectual property theft. In an official Instagram statement, the company declared: “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.” A follow-up comment emphasized: “P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of Build the Wall. P.P.S. We take copyright infringement very seriously.”

Back in 2012, The Tetris Company successfully won a landmark copyright infringement lawsuit against Xio Interactive over its 2009 mobile release, Mino. While representatives have not verified whether direct contact was made with the administration this time around, the message was clearly received in Washington.

Although intellectual property holders would typically object to having their creations leveraged to promote divisive and exclusionary narratives, most corporate entities have adopted a remarkably passive approach. The official White House social media channels remain populated with apparent unauthorized asset usage, including a widely circulated post pairing the classic Pokémon theme song with footage of immigration enforcement operations. Furthermore, the launch of Arcade.gov prominently featured unauthorized adaptations of Sega’s corporate logo, the Green Hill Zone motif from Sonic the Hedgehog, alongside nostalgic startup sequences from the GameCube, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2.

Despite this recurring pattern, historically litigious publishers—most notably Nintendo—have offered little pushback, potentially out of apprehension regarding potential economic retaliation or trade tariffs. While The Pokémon Company previously issued a statement to *The New York Times* clarifying that no authorization was granted for the utilization of its intellectual property, it maintained a neutral stance by stating it was “not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.”

Game companies remain silent as the Trump admin uses their games to peddle hate

Source: Polygon