Roger Ebert made a controversial statement that jabbed at everyone pursing ambitions involving interactive storytelling: "Video games can never be art" (Ebert "Video Games"). While his article mainly pointed at video games trying to be recognized as an artistic medium, his comments reach to all that view their narrative as interactive and are looking to find their place amongst all the new media. The main critique is targeted the seemingly ambiguous relationship author and reader, or player, have in interactive narratives; Ebert, and others, see the quality of any person being able to dictate the experience they are having to be taking away the control and craft of the artist, thusly becoming artists themselves. So far, established forms of art an be interpreted in many ways, but the product itself (a painting, film, novel, etc) tend to be a controlled experience that the audience received, not participated in. While there are other arguments against games, this explanation is the only one that doesn't come from arbitrary tastes and evaluations, and clearly states that in order to be art, there must a finite amount of creators that masterfully tailor an experience for an audience to receive. Even though this standard is easily debatable as a requirement for something to be art, it is the largest opponent against interactive narratives, and therefore deserves a thorough dismantling.
