Movie critic Roger Ebert once wrote an essay entitled "Video Games Can Never Be Art," enraging gamers everywhere.

To us, however, the case for video games as a sport is more straightforward.

Exhibit A: ScrewAttack's "Iron Man of Gaming" tournament.

The three-day gaming competition pits a crowd of aspiring joystick jockeys against a series of eight games. The games range in genre, console and style -- and can include next-generation favorites, like the new "Punch Out" for the Nintendo Wii, or old-school classics, like "Crazy Taxi" from the original Sega Dreamcast.

"Stuttering Craig" Skistimas, who started the tournament in 2007 in conjunction with the Cyberathlete Professional League, said he got the idea for the tournament from "The Wizard," the 1989 Fred Savage flick. In the film, a group of kids take a road trip to the Nintendo World Championship, which culminates with a final showdown over the then-unreleased NES game "Super Mario Bros. 3."

"From the moment I saw it, I said I wanted to do that," Skistimas said. "I want to have an awesome tournament, but I don't want to be like all 'Halo' or 'Madden.' I wanted it to be the best of the best."

The tournament is eventually whittled down to 16 finalists who compete on two games that the public has never played, dubbed the "mystery games."

This year's tournament, held during ScrewAttack's Gaming Convention in Irving, Texas, featured two updates of two classic titles: the racing game "Hydro Thunder Hurricane" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 4," a title that elicited deafening screams and cheers.

The finals had all the elements of a spectator sport: The crowd moaned when a player accidentally ran Sonic over a series of spikes, causing him to lose all his rings and the potential for a high final score. They would cheer when another player found a secret shortcut in the new "Hydro Thunder," shaving a few seconds off of his time and overall score.

This year's winner was Ryan Flores of Moreno Valley, Calif., who earned prizes and bragging rights -- and even a WWE-style championship belt passed from winner to winner.

The second-place finisher was Tre Burns of Forney, Texas, who demonstrated good sportsmanship by ceding 30 free points so a late opponent could compete. He finished the final round only 40 points behind Flores.

So goes the old sports cliché: It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.