Graffiti game tagged illegal
Mon 20 March 2006
Amy Taylor, Journalism
The Federal Classification Review Board has effectively banned a new computer game believed to promote illegal street graffiti.
The game was originally given a MA rating but has since been refused classification on the grounds it provides players with graffiti tips and encourages illegal behaviour.
The main character of the game, called Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, embarks on a mission to become king of all graffiti artists and expose corrupt government authorities through tagging.
Clean-up of graffiti on the Sunshine Coast cost the Maroochy Shire Council hundreds of thousands of dollars last year.
Maroochy Shire Mayor Joe Natoli said council has supported the ban of the Atari computer game.
Cr Natoli said young graffiti artists were looking for exposure and perhaps if exposure time could be reduced, young people might be deterred.
“I believe we could have a taskforce of people who hate graffiti to join forces with the council and get the graffiti off in 48-hours.”
Cr Natoli said some other areas in Queensland had tried similar strategies with success.
“Young people don’t realise the seriousness of these offences,” he said.
Constable Grant Cran of Queensland Police is stationed in Brisbane’s Graffiti Unit. He has had considerable experience dealing with graffiti offenders and said penalties were harsher than some people thought.
“The legislation sets out that if the damage is under $250 the offender can be charged with a simple offence and will be liable for a fine of up to $500,” Constable Cran said.
“The major and most serious offence is ‘wilful damage by graffiti’ which has a five-year imprisonment penalty, however if the graffiti involves obscene words or indecent representations the maximum penalty is seven-year’s imprisonment.”
Tom Smith* has been a graffiti artist for 12 years and said the banning of the computer game was crazy.
“I think it’s silly they’ve banned this game. Especially considering all the violent games that are so much worse,” Mr Smith said.
“My mate has already downloaded the game off the internet – he’s a bit of a computer whiz. We just have to get a few bugs out of the system and we should be right to play it anyway.”
Mr Smith was prepared to buy the game, however was disappointed when he heard on the radio the game would not be released as scheduled in Australia.
Unhappy about the stigma attached to graffiti artists, he said not all graffitists were criminals.
“It’s not all of us that are trashing public stuff. Not all of us act illegally. People make out like we’re all criminals but most of us are just normal guys. We usually go and find walls and ask the owners if we can paint them, they’re mostly quite happy to let us do it.”
*name has been changed to protect the identity of this person.
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Submitted Comments
Interesting angle - both sides are given a say and the inclusion of facts about penalties etc. is informative.
Emma Cheney