I think the issue of video games descendance from traditional game forms, namely 'ludus' games (or just games, for short) is always downplayed, when that, to me, is Ebert's most valid criticism.

We cannot address any proposition of video games being art, without, at least, considering the very concept of video game. Games have existed for as long as art exists, and as Ebert thoughtfully notes, nobody tried to encompass them under the term art before. This is not to mitigate their relevance in human culture or their capacity to convey messages and ideas (which is not the sine qua non condition of art, I'm afraid), it is simply an obvious qualitative difference between the nature of these two concepts - games and art. If games have never been defined as art (everybody admits this much), then where does that leave the specific branch of games we call video-games, which being strict in their definition, really are games played in a computer (hence videogames)?

Surely the issue is more complex, because of video games' dual-nature: one half interactive digital art - i.e. audiovisual interactive stimulus generated by a computer -, one half game, i.e. competitive activity with challenges, scores, rewards, punishments, and skill-learning. On one hand, there are the narratives, audio-visual aesthetics, exploratory interactions (non-competitive ones) which can, at least potentially, be art. They do not exist for any other purpose than that of aesthetic appreciation, and they fall neatly under basically all categories in art definitions (even the more elaborate ones). Multimedia art was all the rage in the 1990's and, perhaps in a stroke of vision, was kept categorically separate from video games (go look it up!). They were similar in practically every one of their semiotic elements to video-games' own, but with one giant difference: they did not have challenges or rewards or points or any other (let's call it) game 'trope'. Well, superficially this might not be seen as that much of a difference, of course, but just as games and art are different, so are video games and interactive digital art. Unlike others, Ebert knows this, mainly because he has played and reviewed games in the past (again, go look it up!).

But why are they really that different, you might ask. Well, firstly, a game author is no just concerned with expressing emotions and ideas, he is also preoccupied with the emergence of a challenging and rewarding play-activity, one which derives 'fun'. There is no mention of this 'objective' in the realm of fine-arts. The very idea that an art-form would have such limiting boundaries would be contra-nature, as art is a means for free expression inside a medium. How can an author truly express himself, with such contingencies being placed in the very definition of his object?

Secondly, the relationship art-objects establish with their audience is rather different than those of players that play games. Art is meant to be aesthetically appreciated, to be understood and valorized by the assessment of the artist's craftsmanship and capacity to evoke emotion and provoke thoughts and reflections on certain themes. That and just that. Art exists simply for the sake of it. It is self-contained. Consider your own memory of watching "Mona Lisa", viewing "2001 Space Odyssey" or listening to Beethoven's 9th. Any pleasure you derive from this pieces came from pure aesthetic appreciation. That was your only relationship with those objects - the assessment of their beauty and how that appreciation gave rise to the sublime.

But games are different. Games are meant to be challenging in their "viewing", they presuppose the development of cognitive/physical/emotional skills in order to conquer their proposed challenges, and they reward and punish players according to their skill. This is the same for all games, be they the board-kind, sports-kind, or the video-game kind. Players, when playing games, focus on winning, on learning skills, on bettering themselves, getting better scores. They are competing with the game, inside the realm of its rules! Where in art does such a dimension exist? There is no reference to it…

Now this has naught to do with interaction, which is, indeed a dimension in art which digital media holds as one of its more powerful pillars. But interaction need not be game-play. Most art already involves interaction. For example, sculpture and architectural art both presuppose audiences to spatially explore those works – this is a mild form of interaction, but it is not game-play, as there are no objectives, rewards, points or challenges. If you want to go further down the interaction line, you can cite post-modern spectacles, theater, and multi-media installations - all allow audiences to interact directly with the "art" (so to speak), but there is no sign of gameplay. Interaction is not what defines videogames, but game-play is.

I argue that the medium we are discussing can be understood as a continuum of digital art and video-game (proper). How each video-game balances its game-structure with its own digital art is really the key to what defines an art/video game. Is the game meant to be aesthetically appreciated? Or does it focus on a competitive activity? Which of these forces if more dominant? A trivial example: Tale of Tales works clearly tend to the former. Call of Duty to the latter. One is art, the other is game. And it is easy to acknowledge this. Just consider the competitive experience of COD online, and conjure on what stands closer: football or private ryan?

This separation is not meant to belittle videogames that are games proper. Games have value despite all this art debate. They can be more entertaining than any art, and more so, while still conveying ideas and exploring human subjects. You want a better, more elegant and entertaining metaphor for war than Chess? A better realization of capitalist economics and greed than Monopoly? This is the very reason people like games and video-games. Everybody derives more pleasure from playing games than watching a painting. In fact, I doubt most gamers would want video-games to truly be art; because usually art is elitist and hard to understand and appreciate and surely not 'fun'. Seeking validation from a realm that to which most gamers have very little connection with, very little understanding of and even less appreciation of, speaks tons of what kind of people are embarking in this debate. People who know very little about art. That is the reason for all the non-sensical FFVII made me cry replies. I have seen this rationale many times on the internet: everybody hopes that for once, what they like can be considered high brow, intelligent and provoking... even though these same people never enjoyed the equivalent expression in other mediums.

As an art scholar friend of mine would say: "Art is a noun, not an adjective meant to elevate another noun". We would do well to keep this in mind when stating that video games are art.