It would appear that violence in games is currently taking a back seat whilst graffiti takes over as the number one games related thing to complain about. The main focus of this attention has been Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, the forthcoming game from Atari where you are a graffiti artist trying to gain the respect and admiration of your peers.

Back in August 2005 New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to stop Marc Ecko from organising a party to promote the game with graffiti artists showing off their work, fearing such an event might cause an outbreak of vandalism on the streets. A city judge allowed the party to proceed, and it would appear there was no ensuing vandalism as a result.

Then, just last week, a group of officials from Hollywood, Florida spoke out about the game, claiming that it might encourage children to become graffiti artists for real. They tried to get consumers to boycott the game and asked Atari to establish a campaign against real-life graffiti.

Now I’m no law expert, but Sony really ought to know better. A recent ad campaign for PSP in the US has resulted in complaints for the company. In November last year a series of spray painted cartoon characters with PSP’s started to appear in major US cities such as New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Sony had legally hired the areas where the images appeared, but perhaps spray painting was not the correct medium to choose. Many local residents have branded the ads as eyesores, and now a councillor for Queens, NY has demanded Sony both remove the adverts and make a substantial donation to the cities anti-graffiti program.

Ultimately, all this boils down to the same old question that’s at the root of the games violence debate. Will young children try to copy the things they see happening on their console? This is a point that will continue to be debated by both the experts in the field, and those who think they know. All the games which come under fire generally have mature or 16+ ratings, and therefore should only be played by people who should already know the difference between right and wrong. If such rating systems work and are trusted for films, then why shouldn’t gamings own systems also be relied upon to stop people worrying about such problems? OK, rant over, I’ll step down from my soapbox now!

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