Ebert's argument is commonly interpreted as him being casually dismissive of video games, but the reason he's still referenced years later, is because his criticism was incisive and salient. Straw-manning his argument leaves us all the more foolish.
What Ebert originally said, was that games will become art once they abandon things that make them games, the interactive elements. At that point they become cinema. He wrote this in various posts between 2006 and 2012.
Ebert presents a definition of art that is focused around the artistic vision of the creator. The argument is that anywhere there is agency, where the artist is letting the player inject themselves into the work, it is by definition not the artist's vision. Thus, video games are by principal, not art.
You and I can pick a different definition of art, base it on aesthetics or "cultural value" or some other thing, [for what it's worth, Kojima basically agreed with Ebert's definition](https://www.eurogamer.net/news240106kojimaart) But even if we plant our flag on another hill, his hill remains unconquered.
The question is not whether you can have art in a game, but whether the game itself adds anything to the art. Do the non-cinematic parts of the game have artistic vision? Looking at the list of games on our collective islands, I think that some are trying, but there's no definitive rebuttal since Ebert published. There's a *feeling* that there is an art form, but not enough evidence to prove it. I have no idea where things will be in another 15 years, but I'm hopeful that there will continue to be progress. It's good to try to do hard things, and I think Ebert presents a worthy goal.
The counterpunch that Ebert threw, also remains relevant "Why do gamers want video games to be considered "Art"?" There are lots of things people spend a lot of time on that aren't "Art", that aren't stigmatized.
I sometimes find myself wondering whether being a sports fan is a worthwhile use of my treasure and attention. The strongest justification I can come up with is that being a sports fan puts me in a common interest group with lots of types of people I wouldn't normally interact with in daily life. In the world where it's easier than ever live in a curated bubble, this seems like an important experience to seek out.
Maybe there's a value in noticing that whether we play our video games on a deserted island, a spare office in the suburbs, a palatial estate, or in a parent's basement, we all have something in common. Maybe that's enough to justify the time spent. And maybe even if that's not convincing, we can agree to not stigmatize people for how they spend their free time.
Would dismiss Marina Abramović's out of hand apparently. Ebert deserves his place as one of America's greatest film critics but hardly infallible.Wow, I was rather dismissive of Ebert’s opinion on this when I thought it was simply narrow-minded and lacked foresight being confined to an era when video game stories were glorified Saturday Morning cartoons.
But what you just described is way, way worse.
The interactivity is what makes it not art? That artistic intent not only matters, but is the only thing that matters? Games will become art when they stop being games and become movies?
No strawman needed; That is not a good faith argument. That is a man desperately protecting his beloved artform from an up-and-coming artform he correctly feared would usurp it.
Let’s get this out of the way first: Every form of human expression is art. When I sing badly in the shower, when my pre-schooler scribbles what she claims is a unicorn on scratch paper with crayons, when a kid pisses his name in the snow. It’s all art. If prehistoric cave drawings can be described as early art, then everything is fair game. My goal is not to diminish art, but to expand, enrich, enable, and embolden all possible forms. It doesn’t matter what medium is used; what matters is the art’s ability to evoke emotion, elevate discussion, and inspire thought.
Basquiat’s entire mission statement was defiantly pushing non-art into high art spaces and demanding it be given authenticity. What would I think of a critic who dismissed Basquiat claiming street graffiti would never be true “art” until it started to look like the Mona Lisa?
So let’s all stop with this nonsense argument. This is not a question of defining terms; it’s a question of assigning value. The only way to interpret Ebert’s critique is to say video games are incapable of evoking, inspiring, and elevating, which inherently makes them less valuable. Art has value; everything else is a diversion, distraction, or really, a waste of time.
I know this to be emphatically untrue.
But these derisive and condescending arguments matter. They matter in convincing people the form in which you choose to express yourself matters more than the message you express. It matters in attempting to invalidate the very real connections and experiences people have with an artform not on the pre-approved list. And it matters in convincing creators they need to chase artificial benchmarks to achieve the all important authenticity.
How many games started trying to promote themselves as “cinematic” in an attempt to be taken seriously? How many games spent valuable and finite resources crafting cut scenes and quick-time events that could have gone toward game mechanics and world-building? How many games broke the bank on casting established Hollywood actors and motion capturing their likeness, while grinding their artists with crunch?
And I reject his patronizing and condescending “why do yo even need to be called art? There are lots of things that people spend their time on that aren’t “Art.” He might as well have patted me on the head and called me sport. If it’s unimportant, why did he feel the need to make the distinction?
It’s just a retread of the old hierarchical high art, low art, no art dynamic
With the 105th pick in the 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft, I select:
Control (2019)
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Developer: Remedy Entertainment
Publisher: 505 Games
Game Director: Mikael Kasurinen
Musical Score: Petri Alanko & Martin Stig Andersen
Genre(s): Action-Adventure; Third-Person Shooter
Platform: PC
It's interesting to select this particular game while a decades-old debate has sprung up in this thread regarding the artistic merit of video games. Honestly, Control is probably not the best ambassador for any kind of "Video Games as Art" discourse, as it happens to be a game that borrows mightily from the language of cinema, the language of television, and the language of the New Weird. The lattermost of those influences is a literary movement focused primarily on how the strange intrudes upon the mundane. Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation is among the best of the New Weird's output, and the influence of Area X is felt all over Control's similarly shape-shifting Oldest House.
Elsewhere, the player will encounter cosmic horror parallel to the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, bits of the brutalist sterility of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the paranoid dream logic of Christopher Nolan's Inception, and the paranormal activity of Chris Carter's The X-Files. Apple TV's Severance could itself be called an influence on Remedy's Control, but for the fact that Severance came after, and Ben Stiller has claimed no relationship to the game. That said, if it's a show that does it for you (as it does for me), and you have yet to play Control, I would... heh... remedy that as soon as possible.
Now for the game itself: visually, it's as striking as they come. It has clear command of its art direction and the aesthetic principles that undergird it. Brutalism is the key design philosophy here, and it is compelling to witness how Control contorts its brutalist design to accommodate the "Altered World Events" that occur within the Oldest House. The House itself is not a static game space; it's a TARDIS of sorts, in that its interior defies the logic that its exterior suggests, and its constructed in the style of a Metroidvania, in that its map is rather large and loops back on itself in a number of clever non-linear ways as the player unlocks new opportunities to explore previously closed-off areas. Those opportunities often come in the ability to wield strange and mysterious phenomena.
Nominally, Control is a third-person "shooter" in which the player controls Jesse Faden, the newly-designated Director of the Federal Bureau of Control. Remedy have never been known for the depth or complexity of their gameplay systems. Interacting with their game worlds is sometimes stale and repetitive, and while Control hardly feels gloriously good to play, it does offer the power fantasy of being a telekinetic virtuoso, flinging all manner of destructible objects with crunchy, weighty satisfaction. That much never really gets old.
But, as a player, what you're here for is the Oldest House. You're here to explore this inexplicable place. You're here for its vibe, for its unknowability. It is best not to try to describe the events that lead Jesse to the Oldest House, and its best not to try to explain what the House is, or what the enemies contained within it are supposed to be. It's best for the player to work out for themselves what weirdness is occurring in this most liminal of spaces. In other words, it's a game that's experienced, and while not every idea here is original, if you've ever wanted to truly live inside something akin to an X-Files episode or one of the five dream levels of Inception or Annihilation's Area X, I'd give Control your best shot.
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With my 9th pick, I’m going to select a game that was the original entry for a franchise that’s already had four games selected - and I’m not saying it’s the best of them all, I’m saying it’s the only one I’ve played:
Final Fantasy (1990) - NES
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Warning: Don’t watch this whole video. It’s four hours long! I just wanted to give you an idea of the game play.
Final Fantasy is likely the longest game I’ve ever completed. The game has a giant overhead map - in fact, the gamemakers went so far as to include a huge foldout paper world map and dungeon map with the game. I don’t know what we would have done without it. The play itself is turn-based combat, which wasn’t really a familiar thing back in the day for video games, though it did make things feel a lot more like D&D.
I mean, looking back on it, it’s basically D&D. Also, because of the turn-based combat, it’s one of those games that were a lot more fun to play with friends - aside from sports genres, multiplayer stuff was actually pretty rare for the NES so a lot of video game time was spent watching your friends play for half an hour, and then grabbing the controller when somebody died so you could play a bit yourself. Final Fantasy allowed you to select (and name!) four characters - so up to four people could play cooperatively without anybody caring too much about who had the controller.
It’s funny, I haven’t touched this game in over 30 years but I turn on that video and it all comes back to me - including the music. Good times, good times!
Can I confess something? I have never played a FF game.
6 is S-tier, for sure, but I have a soft spot in my heart for [REDACTED], since that's the one I played first.6 is GOAT.
Can I confess something? I have never played a FF game.
I said it early in here, but it bears repeating, its cost me 1/2 a semester of college. I had to repeat two classes. I would stay up all night playing that dam game. I still never beat it! I could not get past the last boss.6 is GOAT.
:: double-checks draft board ::There's no time like the present!
Final Fantasy I from the NES era, Final Fantasy VI (originally called Final Fantasy III in North America) from the SNES era, Final Fantasy VII and IX from the PS1 era, and Final Fantasy X from the PS2 era have all been drafted so far and since each game has it's own characters, story, unique battle/spell mechanics and very little overlap with the others beside a core design philosophy I think that any of them would be a good starting point depending on which theme and visual style most appeals to you. Final Fantasy X is the first one where Nobuo Uematsu did not compose the full soundtrack himself but it does include a number of his themes including perhaps my favorite theme out of all of them.
:: double-checks draft board ::
Aw, damn! Let me go edit my last post real quick!
I said it early in here, but it bears repeating, its cost me 1/2 a semester of college. I had to repeat two classes. I would stay up all night playing that dam game. I still never beat it! I could not get past the last boss.
I won't rule it out. the JRPG series I have the most experience with has so far been untouched. But I strongly prefer western RPG games. I did have a deep D&D spell from 3rd to 6th grades and played a lot of C64 and Apple games. But sort of checked out by the time I got to highschool.There's no time like the present!
Final Fantasy I from the NES era, Final Fantasy VI (originally called Final Fantasy III in North America) from the SNES era, Final Fantasy VII and IX from the PS1 era, and Final Fantasy X from the PS2 era have all been drafted so far and since each game has it's own characters, story, unique battle/spell mechanics and very little overlap with the others beside a core design philosophy I think that any of them would be a good starting point depending on which theme and visual style most appeals to you. Final Fantasy X is the first one where Nobuo Uematsu did not compose the full soundtrack himself butit does include a number of his themesthe bulk of the soundtrack is his work including perhaps my favorite theme out of all of them.
You aren't the only one.Can I confess something? I have never played a FF game.
I didn't finish Elden Ring (and quite possibly this is why) but everyone talked about how hard it was that I basically farmed the crap out of the early game so I was OP'd for all the boss fights. Then I tried to basically go for every sub-boss before advancing through the lands.Gotta farm the dinosaurs in the Dino Forest to get those extra level buffs before the final tower!
Nothing personal, but I'm putting Shaq and Kobe on my team. And if you take Shaq, I'm taking Yao Ming. If you take Kobe, I'm taking McGrady.NBA Street Vol 2.
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Yay basketball. Yay fun. And yay Bobbito Garcia aka Kool Bob Love aka DJ CucumberSlice called the games.