Roger Ebert Dun Goofed

I would like to start by saying that not only is Roger Ebert incorrect in his belief that video games can never become art, but he has absolutely no right to even comment on them or defend his previous statements about them without first actually playing a video game. I was actually quite shocked by what I read in Video games can never be art. Ebert seems to really like one line that he was quoted saying, enough that he sets it apart and repeats it in his article. That line is:

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

I have never read a more ignorant sentence in my entire life. The reason that poets, filmmakers and novelists are considered great is because they have withstood the test of time. To say that video games could "never" be an art form simply because nobody has managed to cite a game that has withstood the test of time that writers and filmmakers have is just absurd. One might as accurately say that an infant will never make anything of himself because he has not already attained a college degree.

At one point Ebert says, "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game." This is an interesting idea that he presents. However, it also presents a thick layer of ignorance once again. Either he is unaware that video games have advanced past a number on a score board and simple puzzle games, or he has not properly been informed that just because a game ends does not necessarily mean the player won. Games with dozens of different possible endings exist already. Let us make an example of a game previously mentioned in this blog.

In The Stanley Parable, the player has the potential to experience 6 different endings. The only ending that I would classify as "winning" is when the player listens to the narrator and plays the game as it feels like it should be played. The player is then rewarded with an escape to the roof, sunlight and fresh air. Most of the other endings include a horrible death. According to Ebert's logic, at what point would this cease to be a game, and become a "...representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film."? If the rooftop-escape ending were removed from the game, would it suddenly cease to be a game? It couldn't simply be a representation of a story because there are still 5 possible stories.

Ebert seems to enjoy throwing around cute phrases when describing the artful games that Kellee Santiago displayed. He used terms like "...prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie." and "...decorative interest on the level of a greeting card." to belittle the efforts of the game creators. Perhaps it is possible that once video games have progressed far enough graphically and adopted a deeper literary background, Ebert will finally accept that they are art. Then again, perhaps he is just a crotchety old man who is too used to looking backwards, that he'll miss all of the beautiful things coming in the future.