You may recall an article penned by U.S. film critic Roger Ebert back in April, entitled “Video games can never be art,” which caused a little consternation amongst games players.
Today, Ebert has reassessed that position. His latest posting “Okay, kids, play on my lawn” reflects the fact that he shouldn’t have tried to write about videogames with authority, having never actually played any and having no interest in the medium whatsoever.
Ebert is a fine film critic, but as he notes in this latest piece “I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen … I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games. This is inarguable.”
A pleasing, yet somewhat surprising bit of information to come out of the whole affair has been the general politeness of game fans.
“If you assume I received a lot of cretinous comments from gamers, you would be wrong” Ebert writes, calling most of the comments he received “intelligent” and “well-written.”
While Ebert is in no way a convert to videogaming (he still expresses no desire to play them, even when presented with the opportunity to do so,) he has now acknowledged that his position against them was unsustainable.
