[JohnGreenArt]

The problem with Ebert's argument is that most games, at least up until recently, DON'T provide the player with a world wherein they can experience every possible emotion or change the direction the story goes in. Most of them do present a singular, linear story for the player to make his or her way through. He says it isn't art if the player changes it. But how many games are there where the player ACTUALLY changes the story of the game? Ebert says "Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices." I'm trying to think of any game I've played where the conclusion WASN'T inevitable.

Even when referring to versions of Shakespeare's plays with different endings he asks which version is "more artistic", NOT which one IS art and which one ISN'T art. In that sentence he basically states that both ARE art, but we can deduce that he finds the original MORE artistic because, well, that's the version Shakespeare intended. But clearly this means that it's not that there are different versions or different endings that make something NOT art. You can have multiple versions of the same story and even if they aren't the same level of art, they are still both art.

Why can that not apply to a game that has multiple endings? How is it really any different? If a game has two endings scripted by the game creators, how, as a player, did I really change the story, if I'm just playing out the two versions the writers of the game came up with? How is that any different than, say, the theatrical versions of Lord of the Rings versus the extended DVD's? Or the original Star Wars movies vs. the Special Editions? Or the Director's Cut of Bladerunner vs. the soon to be released Ultimate Cut?

Ebert's notion that if you can change every aspect of the story within a game means it's not art seems like he's jumping ahead of things, if there don't seem to be many games (if any?) that have really reached that level of interactivity.