Robert Ebert’s Video Games Can Never Be Art is a sad piece. I can picture it being the ramblings of an old man past his prime, looking into a new field within his study with a gaze of dissociation and confusion. I can understand, I have grandparents who don’t like me playing video games. There comes the misunderstanding of what defines “art”, which is subjective. When one critiques whether something is or isn’t art, it becomes muddled with non-sequiturs and opinions as opposed to actual critiques on the artistic integrity of a given piece because art is inherently subjective.

An example of his bias would be in his choice to showcase “Waco Resurrection” as an example of videogames and how they can “Never be art” to his majority viewer base of movie goers. This is essentially the equivalent of showing “Birth of a Nation” to discredit every movie ever made, which is just a poor argument to be made. Most of the article is him talking about cave paintings and this crummy little indie game made by some guy in his 20s.

Robert Ebert points out in his article that the game “Braid” which has a mechanic where every time you die, you can rewind time and avoid death. I personally finished Braid and loved it, while Robert writes that “In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game.” Now, I would agree with him if Braid were chess, but Braid is not chess. Braid’s level design is specifically set with the time reversal mechanic in mind to allow for puzzles to be completed in ways that make you think outside the box. Hearing “It’s like chess” just goes to show that he has no idea what he’s rambling on about because he has little to no investment what so ever.

In all, I believe Robert Ebert has his heart in the right place, but his lack of research and understanding for the medium sticks out like a sore thumb. He isn’t consistent in his sources and it shows through the various gaps between completely unrelated topics as he grabs at straws looking for any small shred of evidence to support his opinion.