Why do I care? I've long taken Ebert's criticism with a huge grain of salt. For everything he writes that I agree with there are more (often hypocritical) things that I disagree with. In stretching himself to discussing games as he has, he's called into question his entire methodology of criticism, and as a professional critic I think he is making a case that he is sorely overpaid.

If I were of the revolutionary sort, I'd say we go for his paycheck. If I were a paid film critic, I would be ashamed to associate myself with the profession when such shenanigans are going on.

If he isn't even bothering to experience games or to do even a smidgen of research before starting a critique, can we really trust that he bothers to do due diligence in his film critiques? He might as well be walking out of films at the half-way point for how this makes him appear.

As someone who understands, or at least says he does, the importance of "literacy" and having a strong knowledge of the "vocabulary" of cinema in order to truly understand it as an art form, how is it that he feels he can comment on an entire medium's worth, and eternal potential, with zero literacy or vocabulary of that media?

At this point it should be obvious that gaming is insecure, still looking for outside approval, and wasting too much time listening to overpaid blowhards talking out of their rear orifices.