Trump’s White House recently added an “arcade” to its website that includes seemingly vibe-coded MAGA rip-offs of well-known games. One of them is called Build the Wall and is an obvious clone of Tetris. The Tetris Company, which owns the rights to the game, has since come out to disavow the White House’s latest stunt and threaten a potential copyright claim against the administration.
“At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them,” the holding company, owned jointly by Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov and businessman Henk Rogers, wrote on Instagram on September 4. “To our fans everywhere, we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community.”
It added in a follow-up comment on the post, “P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall.’ P.P.S. We take copyright infringement very seriously.” The comments are full of people begging The Tetris Company to sue Trump.
If Pajitnov and Rogers ended up doing that, it would be the first instance of a video game company actually taking action against the White House for the unauthorized use of copyrighted gaming material for political memes and other messaging online. Previous shitposts by the president’s staff have included AI edits of Persona 5, Halo ads for ICE, and a MAGA remix of the Pokémon theme song.
“We are aware of recent social content that includes imagery associated with our brand,” Pokémon Company spokeswoman Sravanthi Dev said in an attempt by the company to distance itself from the stunt back in March. “We were not involved in its creation or distribution, and no permission was granted for the use of our intellectual property. Our mission is to bring the world together, and that mission is not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.”
Six months later, no action has been taken, even as Japanese officials reportedly lobby behind the scenes to try to get Trump’s team to stop using video games and anime in its social media posts. So far, they’re all cowards.