So you do not believe a symphony can be art, because it requires a hundred musicians to perform it?

You need creative skill to make art.

As the exchange with Eddie demonstrates, "art" is useful as a separate word because it refers to something created by a conscious agency -- or, to borrow your word, with intention. A rock formation can be beautiful, but it cannot be art if it is a natural formation.

If it was made by people, then it has the potential to be art.

I don't know how you translate "more than ordinary significance" into something as mundane as "nice." A more appropriate synonym might be "sublime."

Yes. We agree. High five.

Really? You can throw out "whatever," the vaguest term in the world, and say that video games are not made for that reason? Video games are not made for "whatever"? Then what ARE they made for?

Again, the problem here is that you are creating an artificial dichotomy (I said distinction earlier and you were right to refute my poor choice of wording there) between form and function.

You're rejecting the depth of experience and design and aesthetics that can go into a game and saying that games might as well not bother being anything more than Pong. If they're more than Pong, they're no longer a game?

Is a movie made "for the purpose of being beautiful or whatever"? If it is, do you question whether it should be called a movie at all?

Is it really just semantics, here? Is this a comic book/graphic novel distinction in your mind?

Maybe the definition of "art" isn't the point of contention here. Maybe it's the definition of "video game."

So now you've added another element to your version of the definition -- that something must be "more art" than other things to qualify as "art," which doesn't actually explain anything since it still leaves the actual definition of "art" unaddressed.

Then a movie cannot be art according to your definition.

They don't meet YOUR definition of what that thing is.

I'm surprised we haven't done this yet, but here's the dictionary definition of art, according to Dictionary.com:

Art is not a "thing." It's a quality that something has. It is a value judgement.

I would say that his definition more closely approaches a workable one than yours does.

Excitement isn't a valid emotion or state to invoke? Melancholy? Loneliness? Desperation?

A video game can invoke any emotion or state that a movie can. You say a movie can be art, and even went so far as to say that it is more likely to be than not. So the onus is on you to explain why a video game which can invoke the same emotion/state/aesthetic merits as a movie is somehow not-art just by dint of its being interactive.

Which is fine, as long as you're prepared to dismiss nearly all movies under the same definition.

The original assertion -- Ebert's assertion -- is that no games can ever be art. I could agree that most games are not art, just as most movies are not art. But if even one game can be considered art, the original assertion is necessarily falsified.

You seem to be adding to the definition now -- that any work of art must be wholly unique or original. The Mona Lisa is not the first portrait ever painted. Is the Mona Lisa not art?

Right. This is as if my experience with movies began and ended with SyFy's Movie-of-the-Week and I went on to say that movies cannot be art.

Whereas your position on movies is:

I challenge you to formulate a clear, non-tautological definition of "art" which applies to movies and not video games.

Many modern video games are more akin to participatory movies than they are to Sim City. They tell stories, they have characters with arcs and histories, they're thematically and emotionally powerful.

Okay, then I reject the notion that there's inherently a line to be drawn between fun/beauty, fun/function, or beauty/function.

Eddie came up with the example of martial arts on Twitter. I believe that martial arts can, indeed, be a work of art in the same way that ballet or other physical expression can be art. It's beautiful to look at and it's fun to do, but the intention is neither. The intention first and foremost is to be functional.

Granted, there are certain offshoots of martial arts -- like wushu -- which are developed more toward beauty than function, but something which is functional can still be beautiful, and fun, and if it's not art then I don't know how you define it.

And again, I freely admit it's an arbitrary distinction. But if we're going to talk about this at all, we have to have some notion of what both "art" and "video game" mean. Otherwise we're just smearing words on each other.

And I reject your definition of art if this is what it is. The notion that something must be useless in order to qualify as art is absurd, and I'd like to know how you can define movies as art under this paradigm, and video games as not-art.

That's an assumption on your part, that they are only considered "artists" because they call themselves "artists." Whereas I think Penny Arcade would say they can be safely called "artists" because they create "art."

You got it.

Smart - I can go with this. He's smarter-than-average, but not nearly as smart as he seems to think he is.

To give a not-happening-right-now example, a while back Ebert made a post on his blog that made him sound like a Young Earth Creationist -- the earth was made in 6 literal days, 6000 years ago, things were created with apparent age, a worldwide flood created the geological formations we see in a day and not millions of years, etc.

People were shocked, and told him so. And the next day he responded, "Guys, I don't really believe that. It's satire, like Jonathan Swift. Are people so uncultured they don't even appreciate satire anymore? Gosh!"

What Ebert failed to understand, apparently, is that the point of satire is to take an argument to its logical, absurd, extreme conclusion. To a point where no one would possibly agree with it, and from there they can take a step back and see the absurdity of their own less-extreme but related belief.

All Ebert did was parrot things that people actually believe and acted as though the absurdity should be immediately apparent to all -- which it isn't to the people who actually believe it. If Jonathan Swift had written A Modest Proposal in a time where politicians were actually advocating for a legistlative policy of the rich eating the babies of the poor, it would not have qualified as satire.

What he should have done, and would have if he understood satire, was take the extreme position of beliefs that should trickle-down from a belief in a young earth and no evolution. Saying, for example, that "Modern medicine, which is based on evolution, has not reduced mortality rates by 85% in developed countries since the development of antibiotics." But of course, sneaky sneaky, he's actually saying the obvious opposite of what is true (I don't know if it's 85%, I made that up, but if I were writing the article for real I'd research and get the exact numbers). But saying something that is obviously the opposite of reality, but follows as the logical extreme of what creationists believe, would make it clear that the creationist beliefs themselves are absurd and antithetical to reality.

That's not what Ebert did. But that's what a smart hell-of-a-writer would do. Jonathan Swift was a hell-of-a-writer.

Which brings us to thoughtful.

Ebert doesn't think. Ebert reacts, and whatever Ebert's knee-jerk reaction is becomes Ebert's reality. If Ebert were thoughtful, he would consider dissenting opinions, respond to them thoughtfully, and possibly even be persuaded by logic and reason.

Ebert doesn't do this. Ebert says "If you think I'm wrong, you're wrong, and also stupid, and probably ugly."

His response (one of them, anyway) to the video game brouhaha: "I'm not too old to 'get' video games, but I may be too well-read."

Translation: if you like video games, it's because you're most likely borderline illiterate.

If that's a thoughtful response, here's mine: Fuck you, Ebert, you condescending asshole.

Or how about his response to people objecting to his "Kick-Ass" review: "Them: I was too old to get it. Me: My problem was that I got it."

Ah, the "I'm rubber, you're glue" defense. We'll need a Master's degree in rhetoric to even consider a counter to this one.

Add to that, a thoughtful man would bother to investigate the things he says. I remember being shocked when he said this in his District 9 review:

In WHAT fucking universe are "none of the weapons...superior to those of the humans"? The only explanation I can conceive of for Ebert making this comment is that he didn't bother to watch the third act of the film. But hey, why let that stop him from giving his opinion as if he watched and/or paid attention?

Then there's the recent Kick-Ass review, which focused exclusively on the fact that an 11 year old girl has been trained as a remorseless killing machine and thinks nothing of murdering a roomful of men and then going for ice cream. He's shocked and appalled that the movie depicts such gleeful violence as being glamorous and exciting and never once asks any questions about the moral implications of desensitizing children to violence. 

Never mind that the movie clearly does not approve of the brainwashing that Big Daddy has done to Hit Girl, that a character refers to it as such, that Kick-Ass is horrified the first time he meets Hit Girl and that the entire point of the subplot is to ask questions about the moral implications of desensitizing children to violence.

No no, Ebert says. The little girl says "cunt," so the film must necessarily have no merit.

And then of course there's the impetus for this discussion. "Video games can never be art. No I've never played one. No I'm not going to. You're stupid if you do. I'm right. Because."

Ebert isn't thoughtful. Ebert is thoughtless, and proudly ignorant of many of the things he espouses on; and if you're informed about them, then you're stupid for informing yourself about something he thinks is stupid, and he'll hear nothing in its defense.

What he is, is articulate, and he has made an entire career out of fooling people into mistaking one for the other.

So now windbag. Well, I've already described how he's essentially full of hot air and proudly so. How routinely he arrogantly dismisses the possibility that he might ever be wrong with a multisyllabic "NO U." It just needs a little more egotism to push him over the top...

Oh look. He runs a film festival called Ebertfest.

Even Harry Knowles, the biggest, most desperate attention whore I have ever seen, has the self respect not to call the film festival he runs "Knowlesfest," or his site "Ain't It Cool Knowles."

If you and I are just "the guys with the laptops," he's just "the guy with a laptop, a thesaurus, and a platform." Let me know if he ever justifies his positions with better than "Because I said so and I'm Ebert goddammit!" and I might consider changing mine. Because I'm, you know. Thoughtful.

Jeffrey: how many video games have you played?

Do you consider it possible that a movie can be a work of art?

I reject the notion that something that is fun cannot be art. If I'm a musician and I enjoy playing a piece of classical music, has that music suddenly been rendered not-art by my enjoyment of it?

If I am a music lover and I enjoy listening to a piece of classical music, has that destroyed the art by my enjoyment?

Come on. That definition makes no sense.

And goddammit, Ebert is not a genius. He's a windbag with an opinion and a vocabulary. And sometimes I agree with his opinions. But an opinion is not correct just because it's Ebert's. He has to be able to defend it, which he can't.

I would say that whether or not a game can be art and whether the act of playing it is art are two separate things.

I will assume we can agree that the act of looking at a painting is not art. Does it follow that the painting itself is therefore not art?

I would've guessed Ender's Game, but there's been way more than one sequel, two of which were intersecting/parallel stories with the original.

I didn't like Ender's Game and Orson Scott Card can eat shit. Yeah I said it.

As I understand, people hated it when all of that took place with Wesley Crusher, too, and did not accept it as earned. It seems to me only consistent, then, that they should hate it when a similar series of implausibilities is applied to Kirk.

If they let Kirk get away with it but not Wesley, or vice versa, then you'd have an argument here.

oh my god its a different timeline the butterfly effect or whatever jesus

Except I don't remember it happening that way. I remember Kirk stumbling along more or less passively, being handed implausible opportunities like being made second in command on the fleet's flagship despite not having been assigned to the ship in the first place, or being on the ship at all, because Bones and Pike believed in him for no apparent reason.

Yes, when he realized that he had been placed in a position to take over the ship, he rose to the occasion, but again, it doesn't make sense that he was placed in that position in the first place.

Look, the simple solution would be that they actually followed procedure, some other character is put in that position and quails under the pressure. Maybe they're even a redshirt and they fucking die a horrible death when they try to follow protocol in dealing with Nero. The Enterprise has no commander, everyone's losing their shit and no one has the stones to step into the role.

So Kirk does. He has no right to be there, much less to be the guy in charge, but he's cool and he's confident and he rallies the troops to at least make a go at dying like heroes instead of cowards. If no one else is going to do it, then dammit, he is. Protocol ain't working. Time to try something else.

That I would buy. That would be within Kirk's character and show a decision to take responsibility for the lives of other people and not just himself. And it would give the other characters a reason to respect him in the end. Instead it all just falls implausibly into his lap and he's more than happy to just go with the flow.

False. Kirk was not supposed to be on the ship in the first place and was damn near drummed out of Starfleet. That means that the legitimate  chain of command, one without Kirk's name on it, was already in place before the ship entered warp. That Pike would throw that all to the wind because he always liked the cut of Kirk's jib is a plot contrivance that strains credibility.

That's like the Star Wars apologists who insist that the new Star Wars is good because George Lucas said so, and he's the guy who created the series so he must be right.

If you understand why this is a bad argument for SW, you understand why this is a bad argument for ST. If you think this is a valid argument for SW, then I have nothing to say to you.