That's true, but the main argument isn't between 20-year olds and a 67-year old. Most of the people who feel strongly about this are around my age – pushing 30 – or a bit older. These are people who have grown up with games, know them, understand them and have seen them develop from the simple, abstract representations that they used to be into the hugely diverse experiences that they are today. These are also people who are, mostly, well-read. I certainly consider myself to be quite well-read.

I agree that he's clearly out of his element though. He doesn't seem to understand, and doesn't seem to even want to understand, which is a sad, blinkered attitude to take. So, as Justin McElroy so succinctly put it, he is "taking inky black, putrid dumps on ANYTHING [he] doesn't understand".

"To argue that @ebertchicago is too old to grasp games allows him to counter that you are too young to appreciate art. He could, however, correctly argue that a 20 year old who hasn't read a novel carries mistaken assumptions about literature. And you can counter that a 67-year-old who hasn't played a game perpetuates mistaken assumptions about games.

Which is why arguments between unread 20-year-olds and a 67-year-old who refuses to try games are so silly."

Pleasure, sir! Thank you for the nice comment.

It's all kicking off again over on Twitter right now as he has just proclaimed himself "too well-read" to "get" games. People are not letting him get away with it.

I chalk it up to generational differences, even though that's something of a cop out.

Thanks, Jedi.

Yep. And "art", as Cody says, is such a fluid definition that means different things to different people that it's impossible to say that something can never be art truthfully. Particularly if you don't understand, have never attempted to understand and have no interest in understanding the medium.