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White House Removes 'Build the Wall' Game After Tetris Warning
Confirmed
In Short: The White House has taken down a Tetris-style game called 'Build the Wall' from its website, following concerns raised by the Tetris Company.
The White House has not responded to requests for comment or given an official reason for the takedown. The removal of the game comes after the Tetris Company posted on its official Twitter account that it was "not involved in the creation" of the game and took "copyright infringement very seriously." The company has had previous success in suing firms for infringing on its copyright, settling with the makers of the iPhone game Mino in 2012.
The Trump administration's promise to promote its domestic and foreign policy agendas using video game iconography seems to have hit a speed bump. The White House added a new "Arcade" section to its website on September 4, 2026, with five browser games themed around different policy pushes, each mechanically similar to existing games like Snake, Flappy Bird, and Tetris. Now, one of those games, a Tetris clone called "Build the Wall," has already been taken down.
What's still developing
- "At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and building people together, not dividing them," the firm said in its initial response to the game.
- Meanwhile in Rio Run, players must "patrol the line along the river", with gameplay reminiscent of the classic phone game Snake.
- The games have drawn criticism from politicians, with Connecticut Democratic state senator Matt Lesser tweeting : "Heating oil is near an all-time high but hey you can play Border Tsar Tom Homan in a video game".
- The arcade section is just one example of how the Trump administration has increasingly incorporated video game culture into its political messaging on social media.
- Ironically it may have been Build the Wall 's own design logic that undermined its intended message. As Kotaku observed before the game was taken down, Build the Wall removed the typical Tetris mechanic of having the falling blocks vanish when assembled in a perfect straight line, but still flashes a "game over" screen after the bricks reach the top of the screen.
- The game in question was themed around President Trump's decade-long push for a physical border wall along the US' southern border that would forcibly block undocumented immigration.
- This removal took place days after the Tetris copyright holder The Tetris Company posted a message on social media disavowing the game and promising that it takes copyright infringement "very seriously." "At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them," the company stated.