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Roger Ebert Backs Down On Video Games As Art

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-not-his-cup-of-tea dept.

Jhyrryl writes "Roger Ebert has again posted about video games. It's an apology of sorts, for having publicly said that games are not art. He wrote, 'I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games. ... My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times.'"

3 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Early failure leads to later triumph by suso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Given that the man is 68 years old, has been doing movie reviews for a long time and probably one of his first experiences with video games as E.T. for the Atari 2600. I can't say I blame him for having his opinion set in stone for a while. Good to see that he's come around.

  2. weak arguments by trb · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In general, I enjoy Ebert, and I'm not a gamer. I have no horse in this race.

    I think Ebert's arguments here are very weak, for example:

    1. He says "That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games." He already claims that he has not seen the past and present of gaming, it makes no sense to suppose that the future of gaming might change his mind.
    2. He says that if you could change the ending to Romeo and Juliet, then it wouldn't be art. Consider change by addition, rather than by substitution. So Romeo and Juliet is art, but Romeo and Juliet with a bag hanging off its side is not art? What if I remove the bag, leaving the original? Have I restored its status as art? If a game contains 100 new visual masterworks and 100 new musical masterworks and a 100 levels where I frag zombies, is that art? At all?

    A game is clearly a form of expression, and a media container. I don't see how you can argue that the container can never contain art.

  3. Re:He Did No Such Thing by depsax · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a ten-time attendee at EbertFest -- formerly known as "Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival" -- and having observed him hosting the festival, and having chatted with him on several occasions, I would say that he is the antithesis of "humorless". No one I have ever met gets more joy out of being at the movies and being with people who enjoy movies.