Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

[JUG]

RolStoppable said:
After reading Eberts reasoning and what the opposition could come up with, I have to say that this is an easy win for Ebert.

Also, an interesting question: Why do video game developers as well as gamers wish that video games are seen as art? Perhaps that is how they hope that video games get the same respect by the mainstream as movies, literature etc.

What actually happens is that all these people get more or less laughed at. And they probably deserve it.

The "opposition's" presentation is pretty awful, agreed. But do you honestly think Ebert's argument is sound? Apart from mulitplayer components, I can hardly think of any videogames that work on the notion of "winning" in the same way that a game of chess or baseball does. Games guide the player through an experience. That's an experience that can evoke as wide a range of emotions (and certainly has done in me) as any other art form.

Just today I was playing NPC Pikmin and about thirty of my squad got crushed by a boulder. I couldn't stand to carry on, I had to restart the level. That sense of responsibility and guilt is heightened by the interactive nature of the medium. If that's not stirring emotions then I don't know what is.