The White House has removed Build the Wall, a browser-based block-stacking game posted to its official online arcade, after the Tetris Company publicly distanced itself from the project and signaled it takes 'copyright infringement very seriously.'
The game — subtitled Zombie Border Siege — tasked players with stacking bricks to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, telling them to 'protect the border from the coming horde.' Its deliberate similarity to Tetris drew an immediate response from the Tetris Company, which posted on Instagram and X that it 'was not involved in the creation of Build the Wall and did not authorise or license the Tetris brand or intellectual property for the game.'
The company added: 'At Tetris, we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them.' When asked whether it was weighing legal action, the Tetris Company told outlets it was 'currently reviewing the matter.' It did not commit to filing suit.
The page for Build the Wall now returns a 404 error. Kotaku first spotted the removal. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on why the game was taken down.
Build the Wall was one of several arcade-style games posted to the Trump administration's website. According to Engadget, other titles in the arcade include Flappy Bill, described as a clone of Flappy Bird, and Rio Run. The two sources describe Rio Run differently: Engadget characterizes it as a Snake clone, while TechCrunch reports that players control a white male character whose goal is to deport immigrant characters. Rio Run remained visible on the government's website as of reporting.
Here's the thing. The White House launched a mini-arcade apparently to chase the viral energy that crude, policy-themed games can generate online — a reasonable enough content strategy until the IP lawyers show up. The Tetris Company didn't even need to file anything; a firm public statement and the phrase 'copyright infringement' were enough to get the page pulled.
What this episode actually illustrates is that intellectual property law is one of the few levers that moves fast in Washington regardless of who is in office. The administration can frame immigration policy however it likes, but it cannot borrow a 40-year-old Russian puzzle game's mechanics without consequence. The demo, as always, is not the product — and in this case, the product didn't survive the changelog.
