Roger Ebert has once again made a pronouncement that video games cannot ever be art. He is wrong, and his manner of defending his contentious belief is extremely irritating. Essentially, he relies on dismissing his opponent’s definitions of ‘art’, while doggedly using his very narrow criteria to label games as not-art. It’s really perplexing that he can disqualify a whole medium because of its interactivity. The ability to become immersed in a story and feel the emotions that the protagonist and the other characters are experiencing is a hallmark of art.
It is really a stupid argument at the end of it, because there can never be a cut and dry, point by point definition of ‘art’. If it moves you, if it affects you, and you want to call it art, it is art. Why waste time bickering? Go do something that makes you feel like a part of something bigger.
Chris Loblaw, Author 