Two days ago, two advocacy groups asked the Regional Transportation District in Denver to ban ads for Mature and Adult Only games (there has never been a comercially released AO game, ever) on buses and trains.  The Parents Television Council and the Campaign for a Commercial -Free Childhood both got together to request this action.  In November of last year the Massachusets Bay Transportation Authority to stop putting up ads of M-rated games.  In the IGN article on the subject, CCFC member Peter Simonson said, "It is unconscionable that RTD would accept advertisements for a game like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.  In Vice City Stories, players are rewarded for killing innocent bystanders, law enforcement officers and rival gang members, as they attempt to set up illicit businesses, such as drug dealing and prostitution rings, and commit armed robbery.  As a father and a Denver-area resident, I want to know that my children can ride public trains and buses without being subjected to ads that promote violence and lawlessness."

There are three problems with this.  First, the Regional Transportation Disctict in Denver is a bit of a small target for this sort of agenda.  Baby steps are good and all that, but these ads still show up on television, in movies, on billboards, and anywhere else in the nation.  Second, sheltering someone from these ads doesn't shelter them from any other form of violent media.  These same groups aren't asking for r-rated movies to be pulled or sexually explicit Tag body spray ads (use our product and hot women will have sex with you!).  Are violent video game ads really the problem?  And third, there is still no evidince that violence in video games (or their ads) causes people to be more violent.  Given the somewhat cartoonish nature of the GTA series I doubt that it will be the game that causes the sane to become insane killing machines.