Of all I've learned about the Internet, I know that if I say anything negative about video games, a lot of very passionate individuals are going to threaten my life with authentic replica broadswords.

So when Roger Ebert wrote in his blog last week that video games don't count as art, I feared the worst. You don't associate film critics with Chuck Norris-like self-defense abilities. Most get into the business for free popcorn.

And yet, none of the 3,000-plus comments on Ebert's post – almost all disagreeing – were belligerent. Again, this was on the Internet, where people are so unstable they regularly express support for Kate Gosselin.

"I disagree, but that is the nature of opinions," said a typical response. Another commenter wrote, "I respect your opinion, but I feel the way you put it out there is wrong." From another: "It's refreshing to so completely disagree with someone whom you so completely admire."

The deference! The warmth! The object-pronoun agreement! Of course, there's a reason for this: Ebert personally lobotomized each of his site's visitors. Also, internet discourse has been elevated to the point a blogger can get away with criticizing video games, possibly because the trolls are too busy watching crying children videos on YouTube.

So I feel safe sticking up for Ebert. I've always felt a connection to the guy because, like him, I spent my college years writing for The Daily Illini before co-hosting "Siskel & Ebert" from 1986 to 1999. Also we've both dated Oprah.

Why aren't video games art? It's a question of definition, similar to the old "What's a sport?" debate. I used to argue for a strict interpretation of that one, until I realized a lot of excluded activities' athletes could beat me up. The Supreme Court tussled with its own version of the argument in Jacobellis v. Ohio, when it had to determine what constitutes pornography. Justice Potter Stewart, unable to come up with a simple definition for the word, famously wrote "I know it when I see it in my chambers for 12 or 13 minutes."

As for art, if we look at the Oxford English Dictionary, considered the keeper of our language, we see it's 20 volumes long and costs $995. But according to Merriam-Webster's, a cheaper dictionary, "Art" is "A common nickname for ‘Arthur.'" No, sorry, it defines art as "Anything festooned on museum gift shop magnets."

Video games also lack the elements of classic art, namely: naked people and baskets of fruit. Consider Botticelli's "The Birth Of Venus," an extremely artistic work that has everything you could want in a painting: a naked lady on a clamshell; what seem to be fig trees; another naked lady who can fly. It's such a masterpiece, you can get it on keychains.

This doesn't mean individual components of video games can't be art. Think about the packaging. Anyone who bought "Asteroids" 30 years ago got a box designed with a highly detailed spaceship, craterous space rocks, and fiery explosions. Of course, once people started playing they learned it was actually about a triangle that hated polygons for some reason.

But the box art was the interpretive masterpiece, not the game itself, and so I remain on Ebert's side. His writing style is so sharp, simple and persuasive, I have a hard time disagreeing with him. His blog entries are art, though I'd never tell him that. I don't want to see him naked, clutching a basket of apples.

[Top image via Slashfilm]

Scott Green is an award-winning humor columnist who has written regularly for the Washington Post and CBSNews.com. In 2009 he was named one of the top 100 young journalists in America, and now shares his thoughts on pop culture, politics, sex and relationships at ScottSays.com. He lives in Chicago with his fiancée and their two TVs, ages 4 and 3.