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Prolific film critic Roger Ebert controversially believed that video games could never be considered art. While maintaining his position in 2010, he admitted he should not have expressed this skepticism without considering their future and being more familiar with actually playing them, saying:
He brought up the hypocrisy that despite his views, he did play and enjoy a video game once before: Cosmology of Kyoto, which he wrote a positive review for in the September 1994 issue of Wired magazine and is the only game he was known to have enjoyed. The only other video game he admitted to playing was Myst, which he said he "lacked the patience" for. Ebert also recounted a moment where a Sony employee offered to lend him a PlayStation 3 and a copy of the game Flower, but he admitted to intentionally stalling and declining the offer. He wrote one more game-related article in December 1994 for Wired, in which he visited Sega's Joypolis arcade in Tokyo, Japan, but only briefly mentioned their arcade games and focused more on the state-of-the-art rides and attractions.
"My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. 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."
He brought up the hypocrisy that despite his views, he did play and enjoy a video game once before: Cosmology of Kyoto, which he wrote a positive review for in the September 1994 issue of Wired magazine and is the only game he was known to have enjoyed. The only other video game he admitted to playing was Myst, which he said he "lacked the patience" for. Ebert also recounted a moment where a Sony employee offered to lend him a PlayStation 3 and a copy of the game Flower, but he admitted to intentionally stalling and declining the offer. He wrote one more game-related article in December 1994 for Wired, in which he visited Sega's Joypolis arcade in Tokyo, Japan, but only briefly mentioned their arcade games and focused more on the state-of-the-art rides and attractions.
Cosmology of Kyoto review:
https://www.wired.com/1994/09/cosmology-of-kyoto/
Sega's Joypolis article:
https://www.wired.com/1994/12/segas-tokyo-joypolis/
Roger Ebert articles:
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/video-games-can-never-be-art
https://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-genders
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/gamers-fire-flaming-posts-e-mails
Roger Ebert 2010 journal entry:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100811003526/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html
Kotaku article:
http://kotaku.com/5921865/the-video-game-roger-ebert-loved
https://www.wired.com/1994/09/cosmology-of-kyoto/
Sega's Joypolis article:
https://www.wired.com/1994/12/segas-tokyo-joypolis/
Roger Ebert articles:
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/video-games-can-never-be-art
https://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man/why-did-the-chicken-cross-the-genders
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/gamers-fire-flaming-posts-e-mails
Roger Ebert 2010 journal entry:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100811003526/http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html
Kotaku article:
http://kotaku.com/5921865/the-video-game-roger-ebert-loved
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While the name Myst comes from the word "mystery," it was also inspired by The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Robyn Miller, one of the game's creators, was reading the book when the game was in early development. Verne's influence can be seen throughout the game, particularly inside the ship in the Stoneship age.
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