The White House has co-opted retro arcade gaming for a new round of political messaging — and it’s not the first time the administration has drawn fire over how it uses other people’s creative work.
Classic video games like Tetris and Snake were unveiled on Thursday and feature plotlines that follow President Donald Trump’s agenda and policies. The games also bear striking resemblances to existing arcade games, blurring the line between parody and copyright infringement.
Benzinga reached out to the White House for comment. The White House says the new games are a “fun way” to show Trump’s accomplishments from his second presidential term.
“The President continues to rack up victory after victory on behalf of the American public, while opponents of his agenda are defending their record of raising taxes and empowering criminal illegal aliens. This is an effort to further contrast between a culture of fun and winning and the dark socialist vision Democrats have of Americans,” a White House spokesperson told Benzinga.
Here are the games and the retro game that it is based on:
- “Build the Wall” – similar to “Tetris”
- “Rio Run” – similar to “Snake”
- “Flappy Bill” – similar to “Flappy Bird”
- “Supply Line” – similar to “Tapper”
- “Trump Savings Tycoon” – similar to “Duck Hunt”
In the games, users follow Trump’s policies, like those on immigration in “Build the Wall” and “Rio Run,” and making food healthy again in “Supply Line.” The “Trump Savings Tycoon” game follows the recently launched Trump Accounts, where users try to catch money out of the sky.
Among the five titles, “Rio Run” has drawn particular scrutiny. The Snake-style game has players guide a character in rounding up a growing line of figures in orange jumpsuits across a grid depicting the Rio Grande.
Critics argue the mechanic, built around detaining migrants, toes the line between entertainment and personal morality, particularly given that 70.6% of people currently in ICE detention have no criminal conviction as of July 11, 2026, according to TRAC data.
Parody, Tribute or Infringement?
Video games are copyrighted works, and in this case, that may be violated when the games are too close to the works they are based on.
Benzinga reached out to the White House to find out whether they had obtained permission from any video game companies for the games.
Also appearing to blur the lines of copyright infringement are new logos being used for the White House Arcade Games.
An image that appears to be the Xbox logo from Microsoft is then turned into an A for Arcade.gov.
The games also use a logo with blue letters spelling MAGA that appears to match the letter styling of the video game company SEGA.
The White House has been known to post videos on social media, including those promoting its immigration efforts, that use musicians’ songs without permission.
So far, none of the video games or video game companies mentioned here have spoken out about the new games.
Artists like Taylor Swift, Celine Dion, Ariana Grande, Semisonic and others have accused the White House of not obtaining permission and asked for their musical works not to be associated with the government’s social media posts.
Image via Shutterstock
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