When the hell did he "slip out of relevancy" though? That was the most over-the-top insult right there. Is there a new wave of famous critics or something, or is that just the author's way of saying "I don't like him anymore?"

Ebert made a very solid argument, and if you have a problem with it, you SHOULD argue back. But now gamers who supposedly really care about art are stalking a 68 year old man on Twitter and freaking out at his every response. This is really embarrassing for gamers and it makes Ebert look like he was right. He's a real art critic and we're an internet mob of whining babies who can't take any criticism from the only real critic we've ever had to deal with. If I was Ebert, at this point I'd be Tweeting "games are the sux0rz biyaaaaaatch pwned."

"never judge a book by its cover"

that ought to shut him up :p

I think that part of this isn't Ebert's fault, though I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that he doesn't know how the mahcine works - he had to have nown that by making that blog entry he was going to be stirring the pot again. And, given time, the furor would have died down just like it did before. He knew he was going to be getting comments from idiots, because idiots are primariy the people he gets comments from, be they idiots who like movies or idiots who like video games.

Gamers who attack him deserve whatever he says. But after saying something like that, it's difficult to sympathize with him. Shit, that one insulted me.

Too well-read to enjoy a game? (Isn't that like being too tall to watch a dvd i.e. nonsense)

Tell me Ebert, should other literate types also snobbily dismiss games? Should we dump the consoles or the books, oh wise one?

You win the thread.

Agreed

Not that I agree with Ebert about "games can never be art", I just think he's a little misguided. I know for myself, the heaviest readers I know HATE games with a strange passion. Maybe there's a similar situation in his life, and he's just making a false assumption based on his personal experience.

It's kind of pathetic how much people are getting into this (not here, I mean the one's stalking him on twitter and such). If he's uninformed, which seems to be the case, then why even get into it? What's the point? It's kind of sad the way people just outright attack him over this. If anything, the journalists and gamers are in the wrong with the way they are pursuing this.

And again, why's it matter if other people think it's art or not? What should matter here is your own opinion since art, and experiencing it, is very personal.

And to the above, I liked Avatar =(

I liked it to. I'm buying it on Blu-Ray.

Just exactly which games did Ebert play to come up with this assumption?

And I loved Avatar too, it deserved those Oscars more than the boring, incredibly inaccurate Hurt Locker :)

I'm curious about that as well.  It doesn't seem like he's played any videogames, even ones that get recommended to him.  And that makes his opinion completely null and void.

If we went back in time and showed any of the classic artists the movie Transformers, and asked them if it were art (never mind explaining the whole moving pictures concept), I'm willing to bet that they would say that no, the movie was not art.  People who have not experienced the whole gamut of a medium have no qualification to make a statement about whether or not that medium constitutes art.

It also seems like he cherry picks.  In his original article, he states that videogames can't be art because you can win.  But is that any different than the ending of a movie or book?  Or what about games were when you "win," you can't help but feel that you really didn't win anything (the end of Shadow of the Colossus comes to mind).

Anyways, I'm done talking about this guy.  He obviously made a blanket statement about a medium he has not fully experienced first hand, and that seems like the most idiotic thing anyone has done in this whole back-and-forth with gamers.