My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me. They are *more* interactive, that's all. The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.
Museums of modern art have housed interactive multimedia-installations since the 70's at least (Videoplace), so at least somebody has considered them to be art. Hasn't Ebert ever seen those? Well, I've seen a few of those, and while they may be amusing for 30 seconds, they are hardly games. For example, they may consist of you trying to move a blue box inside a red box while screeching metallic sounds are played on the background. (Well, that's my experience anyway.)
The controller mechanism is never more complicated than a one button joystick or computer generating images and sounds based on in which part of the room you're standing on or whatever. The controller mechanism tries to be as transparent as possible, no need to learn combos on a pad or memorize a bunch of quick commands on keyboards in order to "enjoy" the art.
They don't try to be books, movies, musical compositions or representative art. In other words, they lack a story-like narrative. You don't do quests or develop your character. The don't have cut-scenes, coherent soundtracks and the visuals tend to be more or less abstract. They don't have a high-score board or a learning curve. So, they try to be as digital and computerized as possible, lending as little as possible from other arts, so there's some sort of a point in that aspect I guess. But also...
...these don't make you cry, they merely make you amused for 30 seconds, so it seems they have been considered to be art for the sake of their technological gimmicks and feats rather than for the sake of their content.