Banned Game Withdrawn From Sale

Downloadable copies of a game banned in Australia last year for its promotion of vandalism have been pulled from sale by the major Australian software distributor Mindscape.

Mindscapes sales and marketing manager, Tonia Velasco, insisted this was done voluntarily because Mindscape was a member of the industry body, Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA), rather than because selling the game - Marc Eckos Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure - was illegal.

"We could [legally] say well stuff you, but we cant because we are part of the IEAA," Velasco said.

"We dont want to be seen as the rebels that are a partner in all of this so were just gonna regularly check what they [Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC)] have prohibited from classification [and ensure those titles are not being sold at our store]."

Getting Up was sold by Mindscape for $26.99 through Quicky.com.au, a new game downloads store that was launched last week.

In the game, players battle the authorities to overthrow corrupt officials using street-fighting skills and graffiti.

Although the game was refused classification (making it, in effect, banned from sale) by the Classification Review Board in February last year, regulator Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) could not force Mindscape to stop selling the game in Australia.

This is because Quicky.com.au is hosted on a server located overseas - in the United States.

ACMA said in a statement it would only investigate prohibited content located on an overseas server if it received a "valid complaint", but even then it would only "notify the content to the suppliers of approved filters in accordance with the Internet Industry Associations code of practice".

By contrast, if Quicky.com.au was hosted in Australia, ACMA could "direct the internet content host to remove the content from their service".

"If we received a valid complaint about the game [Getting Up], including the provision of sufficient details for us to download the game, we would investigate it," ACMA said.

Velasco was critical of ACMAs ability to do anything to prevent the game from being sold.

She said it was unlikely anyone would make a formal complaint to ACMA because "its predominantly gamers going to those kinds of [game download] sites ... you wont get parents on there".

"Even in the instance of someone formally complaining, I dont know what action they can take because theres no law there that youre breaking," Velasco added.

In a story published last week in The Australian Financial Review, the countrys chief censor, Des Clark, appeared to agree with Velasco that it was difficult to police the sale of banned films and games in a digital era.

"... we live in an age where national borders are increasingly porous," he told the newspaper on the eve of his retirement as Director of the OFLC.

Getting Up was developed by New York-based multimillionaire Marc Ecko, a former graffiti artist who was the founder of the hip fashion label *ecko untld.

It was initially sold in Australian stores but was banned last year after widespread concern that the game promoted graffiti on public property, train-surfing, fighting and other anti-social behaviour.

The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, and the Gold Coast Mayor, Ron Clarke, were among the games most vocal detractors.

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