In Roger Ebert's recent column Art brings joy — but a joystick?, he responds to Clive Barker's Internet-famous remarks from Hollywood and Games Summit, in which Barker chastised Ebert for his short-sightedness regarding the artistic merit of videogames.

Ebert is an incredibly intelligent man—a movie scholar and a master of the English language. And as a Chicago-born movie fan, my feelings on art were spoon nipple-fed from his teet. But while his responses are well-thought and even better written, knowing his arguments just leads me to disagree with him more.

So just as Ebert took the time to respond to Barker, I would like to take the time to respond to Ebert.

Ebert: The word "prejudiced" often translates as "disagrees with me." I might suggest that gamers have a prejudiced view of their medium, and particularly what it can be. Games may not be Shakespeare quite yet, but I have the prejudice that they never will be, and some gamers are prejudiced that they will.

Wilson: Undoubtedly, we are all a little prejudiced, but I would argue gamers have less prejudice than their films-triumph-games counterparts. Just look at the example you've offered us: Shakespeare. Not only are we now operating under the tacit agreement that movies have matched one of the highest incarnations of the written word (a topic worthy of its own debates, surely), but that videogames—a medium but a few decades into widespread exploration—are to keep up with over a century of progress (film), 9,000 years of advancement (writing) or a history as old as humanity itself (theater).

Ebert: A reviewer is a reader, a viewer or a player with an opinion about what he or she has viewed, read or played. Whether that opinion is valid is up to his audience, books, games and all forms of created experience are about themselves; the real question is, do we as their consumers become more or less complex, thoughtful, insightful, witty, empathetic, intelligent, philosophical (and so on) by experiencing them? Something may be excellent as itself, and yet be ultimately worthless. A bowel movement, for example.

Wilson: I can only absorb from this tangent that videogames don't make their consumers more "complex, thoughtful, insightful..." And I am confused how any medium with a fundamental basis in problem-solving could do anything but enhance such traits which are fundamentally required to solve problems. As for empathy—I would argue that most movies evoke sympathy, or the act of feeling something for another. Empathy, or to feel something with another, is at the very basis of actually becoming a character as players often do in videogames. Empathy certainly exists in film, but it takes a better, more engrossing film to evoke empathy due to the hands-off nature of the medium. When a hero is hurt in a movie, you wince at their pain. When a hero is hurt in a game, you wince at your pain.

Ebert: [Barker] is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would "Romeo and Juliet" have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. "King Lear" was also subjected to rewrites; it's such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare's or Barker's, is superior, deeper, more moving, more "artistic"?

Wilson: Believe it or not, gamers often aren't altering all that much of the art which they experience. A beautiful room, perhaps filled with the finest of authentic Victorian furniture, could easily be considered art. By walking in that room, are you changing the art? Or more so, by walking into that room, are you now an artist?

Say you were to move a picture in that room—then the art may change and, at some lowly level, you may be an artist, too. But in games, that picture cannot be moved unless programmed to move. The interaction with such rules is not the creation of art, but the exploration of art—as if studying a painting in a different light—the art is not changed, just the perspective of the viewer.

Ebert: If you can go through "every emotional journey available," doesn't that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?

Wilson: Did not Shakespeare himself seek to bring a class-varied audience to both laughter and tears, slinging cock jokes around in smooth iambic pentameter? But I digress. The reinterpretations of Shakespeare, from altered tone readings, stage direction, or especially, the replacement of all-male casts has changed audience response to that art (Romeo used to kiss another Romeo). But Shakespeare is timeless because those reinterpretations still lead to an inevitable conclusion. A videogame, no matter how the it's interpreted (through varied gameplay), will almost always bring its audience to an inevitable conclusion—be it of failure or victory, from narrative or sheer experience.

But the real issue at hand—the true divide in this discussion—is the lack of experience that Ebert has had with the medium. Games in their various incarnations represent a much wider gamut than film, but Ebert, like many, hasn't played enough games to believe it (or for us to offer concrete examples that will mean a thing).

But hey, our contact is on the side of this page. We'll be happy to shoot him some recommendations.

Art brings joy - but a joystick? [rogerebert]
Roger Ebert Strikes Back [kotaku]