The Tetris Company dissociates itself from the White House's anti-immigration games

It's one brick too many. The publisher of the Tetris video game, The Tetris Company, dissociates itself from the White House initiative which put anti-immigration video games online on its site on Thursday. The publisher of Tetris assured Friday September 4 that it had not been associated with the design of a video game very visually inspired by its own. Named "Build the Wall", this game invites players to build a wall on the border to protect themselves from "zombies" and "protect the border from the incoming horde". In case of defeat, the message "Illegal border crossing" appears on the screen.

Although there is no mention of location, the title of the game is reminiscent of a Donald Trump campaign slogan, which clearly referred to the border between the United States and Mexico. The Tetris Company "has not authorized the use of the Tetris brand or content protected by intellectual property rights for this game," a spokesperson told AFP. “We take intellectual property infringement very seriously,” insisted the company in a message posted on the social network X. “We believe (...) in the ability to bring people together, and not to divide them,” added the publisher.

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In another illegal deportation game also released Thursday, the player must guide a character representing Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's main adviser on immigration. The objective of this game copying the design of Snake: to bring together as many characters as possible who have crossed the Rio Grande river, on the border with Mexico, in order to expel them. The release of these two games online sparked strong criticism.

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“It makes me sick. They played with people's lives for years and now they are making a video game of their actions,” reacted Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of the NGO Frontera Federation based in Texas. “Those who designed this game have lost sight of what it means to be human and to be interested in others,” she denounced to AFP.