You're welcome Sulu.

Ah.  in honesty i didn't really read much outside of Ebert's blog entry because I wanted to process it, and wanted to avoid mostly what I thought would be the early kneejerk reactions that wouldn't be doing anybody any favors... up until about the post you made about your comment on his blog.

As for the rest... I completly agree.

Although I wonder if criticlly you would need another review art wise rather then "fun" wise.  

There are probably games that are good examples of art by some metrics, but not much fun in other cases.  For example... Killer 7 is just, crazy.  The game just has this sense of abstractness and it's just such an expierence, it's hard to not classify it like you would say, something done by David Lynch.

However at it's core... it's gameplay is... just strange, and stiff.  I think the stiffness helps the atmosphere of the creepyness of the Heaven's Smile... but if someone just wanted a judgement of the gameplay, or that they could just sit down and have fun with, this is clearly the wrong game.  As an expierence it's great... and an actual game... people may not want the expierence because the gameplay is stiff and frustrating.

Other forms of media have found the right level of balance... however other forms of media also seem to have "tells."  You know pretty much before you read the review of a movie whether it's being reviewed more as mass media consumption or as art... often by the genre or other tells.  While with videogames, pretty much any genre made by anybody could be reviewed on a basis of art or on a basis of "will I enjoy it."

In general, if you don't like "artistic" movies, it's easy for you to identify and skip them.

Also, and it's something I hesitate to bring up but... other forums of media have their reviews read more.  It seems like a LOT more people are willing to look at a review as nothing more then a score, then they are a movie review.  People are more likely to read movie reviews.

As such, if you include art in you criteria for review... if ends up confounding the issue for your average reader, who may skim a bit then skip to the score.

Well, all that and the fact that videogame critics have never gone to school to do it.... most likely haven't even studied any kind of criticism for any medium.  I'm not sure how critics came to be in other mediums, whether it was how it is for videogames or whether it was by poaching critics from other fields but... I feel something in general is just currently missing for critics to help elevate gaming to art.  Maybe it is just a definitive "what is art" stance.

Why do we insist on video games being recognized as art? Because just as with any other art form, recognition as art is the only defense gaming has against the bookburners. As someone who has fought censorship throughout his career, there is no way that Ebert does not know this.

I lost a lot of respect for him when he first started doing this. The hypocrisy is simply appalling.

No human should have to suffer like that.

I'm talking about me, by the way.  That video was over two minutes of pure hell!!  The reason arcades died was because sights like that were becoming more and more common!

It's also a reminder of how fucked up it is that Sega had Natal, Xbox Live, and the Wiimote, and still failed.

Looks like he didn't post my comment.

I got denied

Otherwise it was a good read with a good point, but i think i did miss his point in what makes something art.
Apparently, in his view, it means something becoming an acclaimed classic as time passes. Otherwise the comparisons to other forms of entertainment don't really hold.

Anyway, art is the process of creation, as an objective metric, otherwise we are talking about art as purely subjective, which makes Ebert being just as right as the people who disagree him.

Though, Santiago got owned.

He's totally correct if you disagree and or have a differing opinion, regardless of perspectives.

=D

Tony Hawk can make Skate Boarding look like an art, when he pulled the 900 it was amazing, doesn't mean Skate Boarding is art.

When I trash people around in Marvel vs Capcom 2 you could call that level of butt wooping amazing that I mean their jobbing look like an art but it doesn't mean Marvel vs Capcom 2 is an art.

=D Yes I just wanted to make clear my dominance in MvC in light of MvC 3 being announced.

You're referring to actions, not to a medium. Nobody, I should think, claims that the act of playing games is an art.

I would make an argument that several of the courses on which Tony Hawk skates are works of art, and I would argue that MvC is the end result of a long artistic endeavour.

What is this? Is it like those "when u see it u will shit bricks"?