In one of his responses in what has become a long, drawn-out internet debate, Ebert does acknowledge that video games contain elements of art, like original compositions and visual artistry. If that is sufficient to label the overall product as art, as you seem to suggest, then you could make the case that video games qualify as art. But I would argue that it is the central purpose of the work, not its supporting attributes, that makes something art. Board games, for example, rely on illustrators to embellish their works. Does that make a board game a work of art? Perhaps not.

I think the biggest difficulty in this discussion is understanding that all forms of art started as forms of entertainment, and getting the world to accept a genre as art inevitably requires some growing pains. Popular music was not considered art until the Beatles redefined its capabilities. Movies started off purely as entertainment, and even today few make a statement or make you think. So it is with video games, but as developers continue to push their limits I believe they’ll have their day in the artistic sun.

I find Roger Ebert’s claim to be wholly outrageous. A typical snide remark made by an uninformed mind for the purpose of maligning something from which he and his generation are too far removed to truly appreciate. Issuing a blanket statement that “video games are not art” is as ignorant today as dismissing films would have been in the 1920s, or even the 1930s, a decade that gave us “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz”. Would it have been fair to wave a liver-spotted hand and say that those films are not art because film was a relatively new medium? Of course not. I’m sure that didn’t stop people from making such assertions, though. After all, movies were originally a recreational endeavor from which the impoverished, not the wealthy, primarily partook.

Ebert’s generation does not identify with video games because they were not a part of the fabric of popular culture when he was young the same way that movies were not a part of culture for people one or two generations before him. At the risk of sounding shallow, it seems to me that what you’re witnessing is a very typical example of someone being old and crotchety. Ebert’s point of view on the matter seems to echo old peoples’ distaste for and mistrust of computers, cellphones, iPods and other “modern-era” inventions. “It’s new and I don’t understand it. Therefore, it is worthless.”

It’s much easier to deal with life when you can simply write off anything that you don’t understand as worthless (like sabermetrics, for example).

Consider the elements that come together to make a modern video game: original art work, original music. I’ll assume we all agree that conceptual designs (such as those used in creating the characters and environments in Metroid Prime 3 — the game I just completed) constitute “art”. I will also assume that we can all agree original music inherently qualifies as “art”, regardless of the purpose for which it is being created.

How then can you say that these two artistic elements combine to create something that is not art? We’re dealing with visual and audio compositions which, astonishingly, are the same two elements that go into making films.

Ebert’s attempted amendment to qualify video games as “not HIGH art” shifts his opinion from the realm of mere ignorance over to full blown pretentiousness and pomposity. He is all but saying, “The field in which I am considered an expert is inherently superior to that field over there that I don’t know anything about.” What qualifies Roger Ebert to hand down these judgments from his Ivory Tower? Is he basing his opinion on his personal experiences with the thousands of video games he’s played?

Roto gona mama tota.

I am going to blindly (and quite correctly) assert that Roger Ebert has never spent any significant time playing a video game in his life. This renders his opinion moot.

Further, Ebert’s explanation regarding authorial control is flimsy, at best. It is entirely possible for two people watching the same movie or reading the same book to come away with two completely different impressions. Consider J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”. Are we to assume that everyone who reads that book experiences the same emotional journey?

And we know from very personal experience that people came away with dramatically different feelings regarding “Revenge of the Sith” (easily one of the worst films of the decade).

Given that, I contend that authorial control in any medium is always limited be it book, song, movie, and yes, video game. Regardless of the author’s intent, individual experiences will always vary.