[QUOTE=Steerforth]Here's a little gamespot blurb on Republican Presidential Hopeful Romney talking about enforcing obscenity laws to punish retailers who sell Mature games to minors.[/QUOTE]
I am one of the knee-jerkers. Of course, if his statement had been worded a little more specifically, I'd likely have no objection. Instead, it sounds like more of an attempt to expand the existing law than to enforce existing law preventing M-rated game sales to children without consent of a parent. I tend to get up in arms whenever "local decency laws" are mentioned.
There are some comments on Gamespot that come from adults, for sure, who disagree with those existing laws (as is their right to do, by the way) and likely some like myself who weren't quite sure how to read his statement, but the real reason why you see so many reactions along this line is that most of Gamespot is made up of the under-17 crowd -- the very people playing these games with or without parental consent.
[QUOTE=Steerforth]On a (unrelated?) sidenote, under this we have a little article on why Ebert the film critic thinks videogames do not qualify as art. But don't sweat it, didn't a porno (Deep Throat) get nominated for an Oscar once? There is hope for videogames yet!
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Hmmm did it? I've never heard that before. I do know that an X-rated movie was nominated, namely Midnight Cowboy. However, that film had less to object to than some PG or PG-13 movies today. That was at the time when the X-rating hadn't come to mean pornography as it has now, which was the primary reason X was replaced with NC-17 more than a decade ago.
Still, I don't know what comparison you are trying to make here -- comparing video games to porn? -- as an argument that they aren't art? I guess I don't see the connection or the humor.
Ebert's arguments along this line make no sense in context to his arguments about why films are art, especially when he concentrates on experiences and empathy, which some games have been able to convey to me in a way that movies cannot through their interactivity and personalization. He reminds me of the fat elitists from the early 20th century who argued that films could never be art comparable to theater. These days most don't concentrate on which of those two are better, but on the strengths and weaknesses that both have in comparison to each other. Those critics from the past who made such arguments are largely forgotten now for their shortsightedness, treated as yesterday's anachronisms. Hopefully Ebert won't lose all credibility in the future by continuing to concentrate on these pig-headed arguments.