Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

[Perversion]

He posted a new "Games can never be art" tirade on his blog, using a video featuring Kellee Santiago as his prime source.

Kellee Santiago is one of the heads of thatgamecompany, makers of my tied-for-GOTY 2009, Flower. Ebert even references Flower in his dismissal, and it seems as if he probably did not even play the game, and only saw 2 minutes of gameplay, and made a blanket judgment based on that.


Flower is a game that needs to be experienced, preferably in one sitting, to really come to feel its full impact and understand its multiple meanings. I'll again reiterate that this is the only game that's ever made me cry. It has more emotional depth than any game I've ever played, and more meaning, both surface and subtle, than just about any game I've ever played.


If you've not read my essay on the game yet, I encourage you to do so. This would include Ebert's staffers that may have followed views to his blog page back to here. I agree with the first comment on his blog page...Ebert is just out of touch.

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

Yeah, people have been talking about this for a little bit.

The man spent all of his life looking at a very specific medium of entertainment in a very specific way. He is not going to budge, and trying to change his mind is silly. Especially not with the examples Santiago gives.

I love Braid, but I think it only works as "art or whatever the ****" specifically because it relies so much on precedent set by Super Mario Bros. and other games. And most gamers barely give a **** about that, let alone people who DON'T play video games.

Actually, watching the video now, I'm reminded how everyone who seems to hold Braid up as an artful game don't really seem to know why, or at least don't articulate it very well. I feel like the ART argument would be more convincing if it came from, like, an ARTIST?

And comparing the storytelling of video games to a classic silent film like "A Voyage to the Moon" is just shooting yourself in the foot.

In all, I think Penny Arcade broke it down most helpfully.

[John Mora]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

I played two stages of Flower then stopped.

[162]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

Wasn't there an article on this statement in Game Informer last year?

But I digress. Games are a media right? And so are books, movies, and music, yet those three are considered art. So if that's the case, why not games? I mean, aspects of the three are in games.

[Valkysas]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

he's saying that games arent art based on the assumption that all games break from their gameplay and shift into non-interactive bits for what people keep calling art. the cinemas, the story, stuff like that.

he's of course completely ignorant to the types of gameplay we have now, and that gameplay doesnt always stop to go into the story, and that the gameplay itself can convey the entire story.

he's just old and obsolete. I don't understand why it's important what this guy thinks.

[John Mora]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

Actually I believe his main argument is that in movies you have an auteur that's in complete control of what's being shown and how. In games, that control is given up to the player to create any kind of experience s/he wishes, so it's no longer art in his opinion.

[DK]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

I hate to sound like a "why bother" defeatist but I mean it's a really silly thing to get up in arms about and really funny that you have guys like penny-arcade crying foul and refusing to even refer to Roger Ebert as a person over it. :V And I especially love that because he doesn't make love with video games all of a sudden he's old and reviled and how stupid are people for putting any worth into his opinion (LOL).

Especially when everyone that does try to get in his face is always proven wrong (Christophe Gans, anyone?) and further reinforces Ebert's argument~

[162]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

I mean, I'm mostly ****** off that something as trivial as a single square painted on a white canvas or people riding a unicycle dressed as a chicken in the park is considered art when something along the lines of an interactive movie with actual depth isn't.

So screw you, Ebert!....Oh, and screw you for giving Kick-Ass only one star.

[josh]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

he's old and he's going to die soon and have you seen his face(?), so who cares.

[Perversion]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

Oh, and for the record, I really don't think Ebert is a big fat idiot. I was merely riffing on Al Franken's book and using Ebert instead of Rush Limbaugh.

[Caciss]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

people are so defensive of video game.

I think video games are art, but games that like herald themselves as art (braid, flower, etc...) are boring and I don't like them.

WHAT UP.

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

I love Ebert. Of all the old-as-hell film critics, I feel like he has his **** most together.

[John Mora]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

Me too.

[162]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

I mean, don't get me wrong, in his hey-day, I agreed with his criticisms most of the time, but lately....

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Roger Ebert is a big fat idiot

The issue isn't how old and out of touch Ebert is or how artful video games are. The issue is trying to define what is and isn't art to begin with. Is a soup can on a pedestal art? Is a picture of your dog taking a dump art? Is a gaggle of sorotity girls frollicing nude in front of a cameraman art?

As they say, I don't know art but I know what I like. So like whatever you like, accept that there are many people who won't like what you do and will like what you don't, and STFU about it.