Outspoken movie critic and author Roger Ebert came under fire from the gaming community a while back with his statement that he does not consider video games to be art. Since then the topic has been hotly debated and written about on just about any game related publication and website you can think of.

At the recent Hollywood and Games Summit, keynote speaker Clive Barker gave his opinion on Mr. Ebert's views, defending the "games as art" side of the argument admirably. Obviously these two Hollywood heavy hitters have quite different opinions on what makes art. So, after a few weeks of ruminating, Mr. Ebert finally fired back with his rebuttal, and by and large I felt his answers were fairly sensible (with a few exceptions). He takes Barker's comments one by one and gives his answers to them stating most often that his opinion on games as art is just that, his opinion. As an interesting side note, Mr. Ebert has apparently lost the ability to speak and can only express his views on this matter through writing.

While you might not agree with his views, you should take the time to read his answers and see that maybe he isn't as much of a pompous windbag as we all thought. (Just maybe like 50% ) He's a just a man with his own opinions like we all are. Just because I don't like FPSs doesn't make me an idiot, it just makes me a man who likes to form his own views on something. And if that view doesn't jive with yours it doesn't mean I'm wrong, it just makes me, Me.

Art brings joy -- but a joystick? [RogerEbert.com]
[Thanks, Sunjammer]