Marc Ecko Responds To Australian Getting Up Ban

Marc Ecko, clothing designer and one of the principal architects of Atari's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, has spoken out against the ban of the game within Australia due to the Office of Film & Literature Classification's decision not to classify the game. "I am extremely disappointed in the Australian Government Classification Review Board’s move to ban my video game," said Ecko to the Sydney Morning Herald, "based solely on a perceived notion that it somehow will promote the crime of graffiti. To the contrary, I would argue that a graffiti tag in the virtual world doesn't make one pop up in the real world." "To blame gaming for everything that is inherently wrong in our homes, in our schools and on our streets is much easier to do than to actually figure out ways to fix the systemic problems that exist within our culture," he continued. "If a kid wants to learn how to write on the wall, he or she will figure it out. They have done it since prehistoric times, in fact." Ecko said that Getting Up was about "looking beyond the filth and realising that sometimes there is more to the message. It’s about sharing a fictional tale set in a futuristic city where freedom of expression has been suppressed by a corrupt government and how one young man is able to change his world by picking up a pen instead of a gun. You just have to dig a little deeper and be willing to open your mind to two artistic mediums – gaming and graffiti – you may not fully understand or appreciate."