   "If you don't know what you're talking about, then please shut up."
  Roger Ebert: "Games can never be art".There isn't much else to quote as this statement is pretty concrete and all-encompassing. You can always read the link for more. The controversy it has stirred in the community, however, is quite formidable with quotations from true industry heavyweights taking a stand on the interweb scene:Quote:Money Island creator Ron Gilbert saying:He's not saying that film is art, but that some film is art. Ok, I can believe, under his standards, that no game has reached the level of art, but to say they never will be art is naive and history will prove as such.Although, he did say "no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form", so I guess that is his escape from the hammer of the future, but it can not excuse the fact that he's never played or tried to understand games at the same level that he does film. If he wants to continually bring this issue up, then he should at least become a quasi-expert in it first or at lease try to understand it. --------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------Personally, I've never really thought of Ebert as anything substatially more than a media buffoon whose strategy to stay in the dailies is to spawn controversy - one way or the other. This time, I think he's really crossed the line. I mean, the nerve the guy must have to classify something (mind you, a whole industry) with an empty statement such as this, that literally cannot do justice to anything or anyone. I'll stand by what I wrote in the title - Roger Ebert, if you don't know what you're talking about, then please shut up.--------------- /HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------Your opinion on this? Do you think games are (or can be) art?**If anyone here disputes it, one can most likely at least take the argument seriously.   
  Who is Roger Ebert and why should I care about what he thinks?Art is subjective, so here goes:--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------Games are pieces of art!--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------;Quote:Original post by trasseltassWho is Roger Ebert and why should I care about what he thinks?Ebert is a Pulitzer prize winning film critic whose opinion is considered to count, much (but not quite) like Bertolt Brecht back in the day. In other words, he has clout. You might (doesn't mean you should or have to) care because he's achieved more in his life than most likely me and you combined (well, I don't know what you've achieved, but I certainly fall short on my end :) ).   ;  Anything I am not interested in or do not understand can never be art.Q.E.D.   ;  If you've experienced a game as art then you know he's wrong. No opining necessary, to you he's simply plain wrong. If you've never experienced a game as art, then maybe you can just listen to someone else's opinion and take their word for it, or you can make up your own opinion.   ;Quote:Ebert is a Pulitzer prize winning film criticWhich by default removes him from the group of normal, non-elitist, rationally thinking humans. And obviously he's bashing a new medium that has the potential of replacing his own medium. It's about competition.So yeah, why should anyone give a shit about what this guy thinks ? I certainly don't. Then again, I don't listen to film critics even when it comes to, well, films. I find that most of the time, their opinion is totally detached from reality. I certainly enjoyed countless movies that have been bashed by film 'critics' in the past.;  --------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------Games contain pieces of art--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------   ;  Art: 1. the products of human creativity; works of art collectively; "an art exhibition";2. the creation of beautiful or significant things;Clearly video games fit into these 2 categories.  Ebert is using "Art" to fit his own representation of what Art means.More "critic" elitism, which is why I and most normal people hate critics.To me the creation of a world in which YOU designate which rules are followed, and how they are followed, and how different elements interact, is one of the highest art forms.  Monet took a scene and transformed it onto canvas, a game developer sets up the scene and makes it come alive.Perhaps as far as the game PLAYER is concerned the game is less of an art and more like the viewer of a painting, they are just enjoying the art of another.I also disagree with his assertion that chess and other games aren't art.  The pieces on a chess board are certainly not worthy of Shakespeare, but the way that people approach the board, their opponents, and the method they choose for attacking and defending in the wake of a vast array of options is its own unique art form.   ;  What a troll.   ;  Wait, so movies can be art, but a movie in which you have an interaction with, and one that does not always show the exact same things twice can not?   