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White House Removes 'Build the Wall' Game Following Tetris Company Warning

morning · · thread: White House Launches Retro Arcade Games to Promote Administration Agenda

2 sources across 2 countries · Hong Kong · United States

Who reported this

  • South China Morning Post Hong Kong · Centre-right · Alibaba Group
  • Ars Technica United States · Centre · Conde Nast (Advance Publications)

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
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The White House has removed a Tetris style game titled Build the Wall from its website. The game, which was part of a new Arcade section on WhiteHouse.gov and arcade.gov, was pulled following a warning from The Tetris Company. The company stated it was not involved in the creation of the game and did not authorize the use of its brand or intellectual property. The Tetris Company added that it takes copyright infringement seriously and believes in bringing people together rather than dividing them.

Build the Wall, subtitled Zombie Border Siege, required players to stack bricks to stop a horde of pixel art zombies from crossing the Southern Border. Unlike the original Tetris, blocks in this version did not disappear when a line was completed. The game was one of five simple web games launched before Labor Day weekend; other games based on Snake and Flappy Bird remain on the site.

Outlets of different political leans framed the game's content differently. A center leaning source described the game as cheap propaganda with uninteresting gameplay. A center right leaning source noted that the arcade games had drawn condemnation for racist themes.

How each side framed it

Centre
Framed the game as uninteresting propaganda and highlighted the irony of its gameplay mechanics.
Centre-right
Framed the event around the legal warnings and the condemnation of the games for racist themes.

Sources

93% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.