I'll chip in a much simpler thought here that actually doesn't really address video games at all.
Ebert's assertion about artisic control being requisite for literature implies that hypertext literature cannot actually be literature. I outright reject this. Actually, ever since I took hypertext theory in college, I've believed that video games are walking a long road towards becoming a form of hypertext literature.
I don't agree that game makers need to give up authorial control to sucessfully make literature. In hypertext literature, the connections and choices are thoughtfully crafted. However the games do need to be more open to allowing the player/reader to pick apart the layers of narative and imbed themselves in the story.
Last, since FF was invoked, I'll point out that FF4-10,T are all games with strong narrative. This is different from being literary. It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which ones are the most literary.
Didn't even think of hypertext lit, but the comparison should have been obvious. So I'll take the opportunity to ask: Any good books or resources you can suggest on the topic?
Well, I'll have to admit that hypertext theory is a young field and my I haven't done any reading on it in about five years and much of it was nearly a decade ago, so I may be a little dated here.
George Landow wrote a book simply called Hypertext (and later Hypertext 2.0). This serves as a good textbook on the theory and I remember it being a bit more on the technical end of things.
Most of my studies in college were far from this though. We would read things like Remediation by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson, and Afternoon by Michael Joyce, a hundred different little web texts by various authors, and other essays by Bolter. Then, we would debate and try to figure out the nature of the art form. Be warned that I'm more of a "tech-head" than a poet though, so I don't know if I'm really remembering the "best" resources.
And fortuitously, I found out about MIT's opencoursework today, so I just found this reference (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Writing-and-Humanistic-Studies/21W-765JSpring2003/Readings/).
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Ebert's assertion about artisic control being requisite for literature implies that hypertext literature cannot actually be literature. I outright reject this. Actually, ever since I took hypertext theory in college, I've believed that video games are walking a long road towards becoming a form of hypertext literature.
I don't agree that game makers need to give up authorial control to sucessfully make literature. In hypertext literature, the connections and choices are thoughtfully crafted. However the games do need to be more open to allowing the player/reader to pick apart the layers of narative and imbed themselves in the story.
Last, since FF was invoked, I'll point out that FF4-10,T are all games with strong narrative. This is different from being literary. It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which ones are the most literary.
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George Landow wrote a book simply called Hypertext (and later Hypertext 2.0). This serves as a good textbook on the theory and I remember it being a bit more on the technical end of things.
Most of my studies in college were far from this though. We would read things like Remediation by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Patchwork Girl by Shelley Jackson, and Afternoon by Michael Joyce, a hundred different little web texts by various authors, and other essays by Bolter. Then, we would debate and try to figure out the nature of the art form. Be warned that I'm more of a "tech-head" than a poet though, so I don't know if I'm really remembering the "best" resources.
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