Roger Ebert can tell you that arguments conducted over the Internet are serious business. Back in April, he wrote a blog post titled, “Video games can never be art” that incited the online fraternity of gamers into scurrilous rebellion. Besieged by counterarguments, mockery, and offers for free video games, Ebert has qualified his opinion in his latest blog post where he says, “My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games.” Nevertheless, Ebert seems steadfast in his refusal to actually play a video game: “I don't know if they can be inspired to transcend themselves,” he writes. “Perhaps they can. How can I say? I may be wrong. But if 'm not willing to play a video game to find that out, I should say so. I have books to read and movies to see.”
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