Ebert battered into submission over "games as art" comments

Film critic Roger Ebert has u-turned on his assertion that games can never be "art" - after 4,500 comments on his article claimed otherwise.

Apparently, Roger now thinks that games might be art "someday". Something of a turnaround from the stance in his piece, "Video games can never be art".

"My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds," he now reckons.

"What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times. How could I disagree? It is quite possible a game could someday be great Art."

The humiliating back-track continued: "Who was I to say video games didn't have the potential of becoming Art? Someday? There was no agreement among the thousands of posters about even one current game that was an unassailable masterpiece. Shadow of the Colossus came closest. I suppose that's the one I should begin with."

Roger? You're rubbish. Thanks, Kotaku.