White House removes controversial video game after warning from gaming company
By Kit Maher, CNN
(CNN) — The White House has removed from its website an arcade-style “Build the Wall” game closely styled like Tetris, which comes after the gaming company warned of copyright infringement.
The White House last week launched a series of games on its website to tout the administration’s priorities. But two games focused on immigration — “Build the Wall” and “Rio Run” — quickly sparked backlash, including from the Tetris brand, which said that it believes “in the power of connection, and bringing people together, not dividing them.”
The “Build the Wall” game — which first appeared on the site last Thursday — asked users to stack bricks and “hold the line” against a “zombie border siege.” Soon after its debut, Tetris posted on Instagram that it was not involved in the game’s creation and added, “We take copyright infringement very seriously.”
The game was gone from the White House website as of Wednesday. But some clips of the game are still featured in videos that the White House posted on social media. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“Tetris has no comment,” a representative of Miller PR, which represents Tetris, told CNN on Wednesday.
Another immigration-themed game, “Rio Run,” still appears on the White House website. The game, which is similar to Snake, has users “patrol the line” along the Rio Grande and “pick up every crosser in the lot” to earn a high score of deportations.
The White House is also still featuring three other arcade-style games — one that prompts users to fill their “kids’ Trump accounts”; one that prompts users to fly a bald eagle down the National Mall; and another where users can sort a school lunch to “Make America Healthy Again.”
The launch of the arcade games was the White House’s latest aggressive online effort to troll Democrats, which has at times surfaced racist and offensive images. Trump and the White House have drawn sharp criticism, for example, for their use of social media and official government platforms — including by using racist and offensive images, like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and the Obamas depicted as apes in a jungle.
A White House official last week cast the arcade games as “an effort to further contrast between a culture of fun and winning and the dark socialist vision Democrats have for America.”
And on social media, the White House hasn’t shown signs of backing off of using video game imagery to promote its agenda.
On Tuesday, they released another video modeled after Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda, called “Legends of Trump.” In it, Trump walks into the White House and sits at the Resolute Desk signing papers. Texts appears and says “President Trump is working tirelessly … TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
The-CNN-Wire
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