It's pretty sad that a guy who went through some bad illnesses now takes joy in trolling and attention whoring. It would seem losing the ability to speak would give him a kick to at least try not to be a dick. Especially when he is wrong and he was already once, when he talked crap about rock musicians. Seriously, he should just watch the remake of Karate Kid again, such a great movie, so deserving those stars.
" Guh, wow. What a great way to retaliate. How about instead of snidely creating an account on a poll, how about you 'angry/defensive' folk actually send him an email with you're point of view instead of being a number or percentage in a poll. "
What are the chances he reads it? It'd be much better to have the basis of his argument fall out from underneath him. "
He reads and responds to comments on his articles, quite frequently I might add.
People have tried to provide him with reason, the thing is, he doesn't use any. He goes on a rampage against games and then he says "I don't play game DUR DUR DUR", it's another case of people making arguments without knowledge or experience. What he knows of braid, he knows from a trailer. He also believes his definition, whatever that may be, of art is the correct one. Many of the "artists" he cites were doing their craft with the intent of marketing or making a profit, yet when video games do that it somehow helps his argument? He then ignores the people who try to present the other side and simply crafts a shitty little poll, much like Fox news loves to do, to get his point across. I think it's fantastic that the only people taking his poll are the ones following him on twitter...WAIT, NO I DON'T. I don't want his biased poll to succeed.
This whole rampage against 3D (despite raving about it in Avatar, and giving that movie his top honor of 4 stars) and this never-ending rant about videogames, a medium of which he has ZERO experience with is fucking retarded.
who is he doing this for??! wtf is wrong with you roger?!
ed boon doesn't relentlessly question who decided films can be classified as art. ebert should stick to what he knows best, not what he can't understand.
" Roger Ebert is the most obvious troll ever and no one seems to realize this. "
Pretty much this.
He is from a differnet era, but he has latched onto social medai ever since cancer has taken his ability to speak away. It is his primary way to communicate to the world, and he has done a good job using it to put out his opinions to a new generation.
Calling Roger Ebert a douchebag is out of line, dissrespectful, and only furthers his point. I have nothing but respect for Ebert even if I don't agree with some of his views on movies and do not agree with the satement he made about video games. It is true Huckleberry Finn has more cultural and moral importance than any video game currently does, but that is because video games are still young. Video games have only been around for what, fourty or thirty years, and when you take into consideration that for about ten or twenty of those years video games were mainly simple arcade games with little story due to technology limitations you are left with about ten or twenty years that video games have been able to or really try to tell a valuable and emotional story. Telling a relavent or powerfull story in a video game is made complicated and difficult by the fact that the the advancement of the stroy can only be done with auidence involvement instead of being controlled by the artist, so far very few video games have done this and rely on becoming movies to advance their stories rather than letting the player advance them themselves. Video games are young and still have a lot of growing up to do. By time Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Hukleberry Finn, the art of writing a great novel had been perfected and done for hundreds of years.
To answer Ebert's poll, I chose video games. They are more relavent to me and important to me personally than Huckleberry Finn, even if I enjoyed the novel. See a novel reads the same every time you read it, and a movie plays the same way everytime you play it. True you might notice some more satire, references, or plot devices upon reading or watching something more than once but they are still a linear experience. No it is true that a good majority of games are linear but even in linear games the audience can be tasked with plot important decisions that cannot be made in movies or books, and can play differently every time you play them. I'm sure nobody has had the same expereince as someone else playing Red Dead Redemption or the same expereince twice while playing through the game for a second time.
" Someone make a Huckleberry Finn adventure game! "
Sierra Online presents... Huck-Quest. Mark Twain's masterpiece finally realized in it's full EGA glory! And for the copy protection, they can just include the whole book. "
Actually a roll playing game set in the world of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would be pretty sweet. It would be like Fable II but with the characters and atmosphere of the world Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn live in.
As long as his articles about video games generate more hits to the newspaper's site than anything else they have to offer, why wouldn't he just keep riding the wave? The fact of the matter is that the poll makes absolutely no sense if you think about it (he may as well be asking "Do you like kittens or cheesecake?")
Remember -- There is no such thing as bad publicity (Well, okay, unless you're advertising a handheld as a nut. That's pretty bad.)
Roger Ebert's argument is that films are art, and video games aren't, but tell me this, why are films based off of the art-less video games? The man is a god damn fool who has never played a video game before, and thinks of them in the same way he thinks about board games. Also, this is why I believe we need to get rid of the name "video games," because it sounds incredibly silly and doesn't do our industry justice.
" Calling Roger Ebert a douchebag is out of line, dissrespectful, and only furthers his point."
Umm, how? How does a forum user on giantbomb calling him a douchebag further his point of video games not being art? "
It shows that we cannot respect others opinions and make counter-arguments maturely which only makes us look more like "fools". "
...So therefore games aren't art? I mean, if you post something saying that The Shining isn't art because it's based on a book and some fan of The Shining comes to your page and calls you a douchebag, does that make you correct? No. There are irrational people in all forms of life. If you insult something using ignorance, someone is gonna get pissed. I don't care what it is.
Eh, Ebert is an older guy. I'd be surprised if he's ever seriously played a videogame.. Easy to understand why he's not a fan/ He is however, a great film critic. I've been reading his reviews for years, and he always gives his honest opinion and p[provides valid criticism. A very witty writer as well.
He's senile. At his peak, Ebert would know how ridiculous and unfair this survey is.
Yea who would pick Huckleberry Finn over every videogame ever? An idiot.
Maybe if it was a question of which is more artistically significant, every book ever or every videogame ever? Or even would you rather read the greatest novel or play the greatest video game? But Huckleberry Finn, honestly if video games lose I think Ebert must have voted a million times for it.
Roger Ebert is like a fanboy. He loves movies and books, but not games. It's like how a lot of people prefer Xbox over PS3 and what have you. It's all matter of opinion, and usually, I don't agree with his opinion. So... -shrugs-. Video games. Only 'cause I can care less about Huckleberries with fins. And really, if it's all about art?
Meh, I don't care enough about that to get into an arguement about it. But, I do think games have aristic value in them, just as much as movies. I think it's shared, some movies suck with it, while some games aren't good at showing it either, and vice versa. As for books... I don't describe books as a form of art. Ok, I'm done. I'll just say this. Video games win on this.
" I find it interesting that as a film critic, he uses a book to try and prove his point. "
And as a person who likes video games, you're missing his point and so reaffirming his point. "
What?
Ebert's a film critic and his point has been all along that videogames will never be art and he said so from his respected position as a film critic. Using literature instead of film denigrates his position as a film critic because he fails to bring a game up against an example of the artform of which he is supposed to be an expert thereof and it also immediately invalidates the survey because he compares a giant of literature created over 100 years ago to modern creative content created in the last 30 or so years which has just begun to mature as an expressive form. He's an idiot and so are you. "
Consider what the poll is anyway. It's not serious. The real thing that it's getting at is how immature people who play video games are when it comes to discussing their hobby, something he's mentioned a few times before. Always quick to take offense when it's not referred to as art then point out the one in a million game that kind of is but not really such as BioShock or Shadow of the Colossus as if that's enough to justify the industry. For someone posturing to be as smart as you are, take a step back and look at the big picture rather than just using big words. "
The poll's seriousness isn't the issue, the fact that it's in a printed publication by someone who trades off the respect of the publication and his own standing is. The real thing isn't that it's getting to the heart of some issue of gamer immaturity, but rather Ebert's own immaturity and downright vehement anti-game (and thus anti-gamer) sentiment. He's been attacking games incredibly irrationally for a while and this the worst so far. It's an example of some of the worst editorialising on an issue which produces nothing but bad vibes and site traffic based on a generation gap.
" I like Roger Ebert. I like him a lot actually. But this whole "war on video games" just seems weird. I'm not sure exactly what Ebert is trying to prove here. It doesn't seem like this survey proves anything more than "HEY! I'M RIGHT!" or "YOU'RE ALL FOOLS, YOU FOOLS!" That being said, this whole "games as art" debate is completely uninteresting to me. "
This survey is very odd as I do not think Ebert like many believe was "raging a war" on video games as art. Very often on his twitter he will link to sites, articles, videos that are very pro video games and leaves it as that, to offer the opposing viewpoint of his. Sometimes will compliment them as well, and has said overall the comments are very constructive moreso than other topics. So this survey just seems a little childish and out of ordinary.
If it was Catch-22 versus video games, I would actually vote for the book because I really enjoyed reading it. Huckleberry Finn was not enjoyable to read.
He probably just sucks at every game known to man, so now he's out on a revenge quest against these confangled computer video game tingies you plug into the television box and move with sticks and buttons. Needless to say I picked video games.
" He probably just sucks at every game known to man, so now he's out on a revenge quest against these confangled computer video game tingies you plug into the television box and move with sticks and buttons. Needless to say I picked video games. "
And you've probably never read a book that wasn't assigned to you in class. If this "real gamer cred" is so important you probably hate Brad, huh tool? Because unless you're spending all day mastering games you don't know anything. Brilliant stuff.
" He probably just sucks at every game known to man, so now he's out on a revenge quest against these confangled computer video game tingies you plug into the television box and move with sticks and buttons. Needless to say I picked video games. "
He actually has never played a single videogame in his life. Yet he still dismisses them. The man is pompous, plain and simple.
@clubsammich: He's played games live on TV. Youtube it. Presuming something without doing any kind of fact checking, hmm there's a word for that. Pom...pie? No. Pampo? No. Oh its on the tip of my tongue, Bill Hicks would know...
" @clubsammich: He's played games live on TV. Youtube it. Presuming something without doing any kind of fact checking, hmm there's a word for that. Pom...pie? No. Pampo? No. Oh its on the tip of my tongue, Bill Hicks would know... "
I actually wasn't aware of that. I was only basing it off his recent blog post where he watch videogames being played rather than actually play them himself.
" A. The Room B. Ico DUUERRP, WIZ ONE IS DA ARTY ONE?!!???11///!?! "
Showed him. That's exactly like what he did. This is intelligent and not at all fool passion completely devoid of context. He says compare Huck Finn to any game and you pick the best worst movie and compare it to a slog of an art game and follow up with some swell all caps internet speak to really drill it home. "Take us seriously" is what I get from this.
Log in to comment