This post is about Ebert, but it isn't about games as art. It's about communication.

If someone doesn't know what they're talking about, ignore what they're saying. That's a simple guideline, and everyone seems to know it. Except when it comes to insulting blog posts written by famous guys; then everyone tends to lose their shit.

Everybody, including Ebert, is aware that when he holds court on games, he literally does not know the subject that he's talking about. He doesn't know in the sense that he doesn't understand the principles on which games are built. He doesn't know how to play them. He doesn't know the history of the medium. He doesn't know Ninja Gaiden from Monkey Island.

He can't pose as an appreciator or detractor of gaming. If you want to trash something, you have to be familiar with it, and experience it on its own terms. You can't disparage a work before you know how to describe it; the uneducated lack even the vocabulary needed to criticize.

Consider how complete Ebert's ignorance is: he only knows how to talk about games as if they were films. He believed watching a video of somebody else playing Flower and Braid was like playing them himself. (How easy game reviewing must be, Ebert thinks: you need only watch a short clip of the game, and then you know everything!)

If someone told Ebert that they believed movies were disposable entertainment, and had never watched a movie from start to finish in their entire life, how many films would he ask them to watch before he trusted their opinion of cinema? 100 of the greatest movies? 1000? Would he even believe in the possibility of communication with this hopelessly and willfully ignorant person?

Ebert remains ignorant by choice. He has never made, and never will make, the effort required to begin to understand a medium that he hates. If a game was art, Ebert wouldn't know; he doesn't play games.