I think Eberts second point is far more valid than the idea of games can't be art. Mainly because the value of the question may raise why gamers think that games can or are art in the first place. The answer is rather simple.

Gamers have been considered low brow class of people. Gamers are nerds sitting in the dark in front of the television with a controller in had. Generally males who haven't even kissed a girl. Because of this and lack of emotional development that's being siphoned away. Is being replaced by the experiences provided by games. It's a substitute of emotions that are easier to get than life.

Gamers by elevating the form of entertainment to level of art. So that games can stand up there with Davinci and Michaelangelo, changes the social class of Gamers to low and instead misunderstood where only time will be needed for the massive to accept gamers. It's an imagined easy route for social acceptance.

Can games be art. I would like to think so. I would like to think that the entertainment I pound away at the keyboards writing line after line of code. For the result that thousands of people may experience fun and euphoria can someday be considered art. Can the toils, blood sweat and tears of a hundred people working late hours to bring excitement to gamers around the world not be considered some form of art. As we stand now it's unfair to say yes. It's like patting our own backs and saying that we created art. Those who are to determine art will be the masses once our time has come and gone. It's still early to tell if games like Super Jumpman, Dragon Quest 3 and Final Fantasy 7 will some day be seen in the museum of our descendants. Let's wait a generation or two after Miyamoto, Wright, Miers pass on.

i guess, so something like bioshock/fallout3/gow3/UC2 is in no way shape or form art.......but some strung out junkie in NYC slinging paint randomly at a thick piece of paper is........i total see where the naysayers are coming from.......

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.

Any medium that expects your constant attention before showing you more of itself is not art; it's a woman.

If he struck a nerve with some people, then we know that some are taking gaming a bit too seriously.

I get this sense that most people who are heavily invested in the art world want art to be something far more profound than it actually is.

The truth is, art is something incredibly basic and integral to the human mind. That's why we give finger paints and play-doh to three year olds. Art can be profound and lofty, but it can also be mundane and practical.

It's ironic, but these people who want to confine art to high-minded and complex ideas are actually the ones selling art short. They make art seem less important and ubiquitous than it actually is.

this!

There is art involved with games; graphics, story, etc. But at the sum of it all a game is still just a game.

Why is it taking gaming to seriously to think that games are worthy of similar critical acclaim to film?

I love Ebert, so I think he needs to stick to what he knows about.

I mean, he is saying that it's not a game if you can't win? Can't he accept that the definition of a video game isn't set in stone and that the kind of experiences offered by games has moved beyond Pong. And... if say, something like Silent Hill isn't a game (you can't win, get points etc), then what is it? He say's it's a kind of representation of a story etc. Then does it then count as art?

And by his own definition, Metal Gear Solid isn't art but Freddy Got Fingered is.

Not art?:
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus
Gran Turismo
Alan Wake
Uncharted 1/2
Mass Effect

Art:
Troll 2
Hard Rock Zombies
Weasels rip my flesh
Rattlers
Santa Clause Conquers the Martians
Puma Man

Also, in terms of "art". Resident Evil = Arkanoid, since they they both score a zero. :)

Peh. Ebert, YOU IS WRONGZZZ

You guys are forgetting that there are plenty of movies that AREN'T art. But the fact remains that a movie can be art because it can come from a genuine art impulse. However a work of art should stand as it is. It should be given the proper presentation and then simply exist as an object of contemplation. If you think interactivity is not a barrier to this then you are either fooling yourself or simply haven't thought enough about the subject to have an opinion worth considering.