One insult I have seen thrown around at a lot of independent games lately is that they are pretentious. Games like Dear Esther, The Path, Gone Home, and most recently Amnesia A Machine For Pigs are all apparently trying to pretend that they are something deeper then they really are. Moviebob said in his review of Branded that pretentiousness is often thrown around a lot these days and is often misapplied, being applied to anything that tries to do something different and diverts people's expectations. Now, if you don't like these games that's fine you have your opinion and I have mine. This discussion is less about wither these games are good, but rather a discussion of wither these games deserve to be labeled as pretentious. I liked Dear Esther, but I only really like the music and environments, to me the narrator is the deal breaker and it seems that it is likewise for many others. Gone Home was a fun little exercise in subversion, bait and switch, and interactive narrative, but I can see why people may not like that. And I loved Amnesia A Machine For Pigs, yes it wasn't as scary as the original, but I enjoyed the fact they tried something different and it seems that for a least some people it worked. The only game I have ever played that I can flat out call pretentious is Anna. I have never been able to get into the saw mill and I have no desire to do so if they make it so bizarrely abstract just to open a goddamn door and from what I have seen from a playthrough I watched on Youtube it never seems to get any better. So my fellow Escapists what games are pretentious in your books and what games do you think are unfairly called pretentious.
What Makes A Game Truly Pretentious
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If you're making the rounds of the conventions talking up this great piece of art you've created, when what you've essentially created is Donkey Kong, "But the monkey represents ennui!", then it's possible you've made a pretentious game.
If you describe your game as an "interactive narrative experience", then your game may be pretentious.
If your game opens with a quote from Kierkegaard, there's a chance you've made a pretentious game.
If at any point, the player is instructed to "Press A to experience the futility of action in an ever-changing world", then there's a distinct possibility you've made a pretentious game.
If you describe your game as an "interactive narrative experience", then your game may be pretentious.
If your game opens with a quote from Kierkegaard, there's a chance you've made a pretentious game.
If at any point, the player is instructed to "Press A to experience the futility of action in an ever-changing world", then there's a distinct possibility you've made a pretentious game.
Well.... The only game I can think of that could be seen as pretentious is a game called The Void, or Turgor, or Tension. I haven't ever played the game but I thoroughly enjoyed watching a Let's Play of it (Here's a link if you want to watch it http://www.youtube.com/user/CannibalK9/videos ) and I can safely say that it's a game I can see many people calling pretentious.
If the creator cares more about the art than the game being playable it's pretentious. Even more so when they try to remove as much power from the player as possible so the player doesn't ruin the artist's vision. The main reason I hated Dear Esther was because I couldn't jump or climb hills, I was stuck on a stupid railroad with no freedom.
I don't know if pretentious is exactly the right word but To The Moon may qualify. I would compare it to a video game equivelent to Oscar bait films, if there is such a thing. Seems to have been made with the precise intention to be as arty as possible with the *express* purpose to make people cry at all costs, with plot reveals and twists laid out perfectly for maximum feels regardless of how artificial it can feel.
Just look at the music, to quote one member of this site, it's like the music was churned out of a computer set to Teary Eyed Mode.
It's a good game and is worth a play when it next comes on Steam sale but by the end I was so aware of the devs trying to rip my heartstrings out the exact opposite occurred and I just couldn't be bothered. Whenever someone says "it was so emotional, best game ever T_T" I want to tell them they've been played for a fool, especially if they cried at the ending.
Just look at the music, to quote one member of this site, it's like the music was churned out of a computer set to Teary Eyed Mode.
It's a good game and is worth a play when it next comes on Steam sale but by the end I was so aware of the devs trying to rip my heartstrings out the exact opposite occurred and I just couldn't be bothered. Whenever someone says "it was so emotional, best game ever T_T" I want to tell them they've been played for a fool, especially if they cried at the ending.
Usually, if the game sacrificies about everything gameplaywise to deliver a "message". Or basically every game that could've been a movie and there wouldnt have been ANY difference. It feels like some Hipster artist desperately wanted to show how damn deep he can be. Apart from that i have the firm belief that Games that railroad you trough a story, like dear Esther, are not games at all. It's just a movie where the player is required to hold a button pressed to keep it running.
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Pretty much this. If the game removes gameplay, or makes the gameplay generally unfun for the sake of "art" then that game is pretentious. This is one of the reasons that I don't like David Cage's games (well, that and the fact that he hypes up his stories, which then turn out to be absolutely awful).TehCookie said:
Putting narrative and art direction ahead of gameplay is NOT PRETENTIOUS.
It's called making a bad game/not a game/minimalist game/... story-driven game, or, in the case of Cage, an interactive movie. Pretentious, as in pretense, as in assumption, means that the creators of the [insert whatever shit with a narrative here] automatically assume a role of self-import by providing you with a sense of an all-powerful/deep/meaningful narrative and philosophical questions, but being, in reality, completely shallow.
There's nothing pretentious about a game that sacrifices gameplay for narrative. It's pretentious of that narrative is entirely predictable, ham-fisted, obvious, shoved in your mouth by an evil version of Oprah Winfrey who seems to think that it's the next best fucking thing since sliced bread and God's Gift to the Medium. It's trying too hard and falling short, essentially. It's like a whole movie talking about the consumer culture with the only message being a very obvious "IT'S BAD TO EAT TOO MUCH GREASY FOOD KIDS". It fails to impress and just comes off as annoying. (unintentional moviebob reference, fuck me NOW PEOPLE WILL THINK I'M AN ASSHOLE)
To everyone: Please for the love of god stop using the word "pretentious" when describing certain types of art direction or narrative structure that involves subversion. That's not pretentious (IT CAN BE, BUT IT'S NOT A HAND-IN-HAND).
Maybe I'm constricting the term. But being annoyed with a game for missing an element of gameplay is just the game being annoying/poorly designed. The term doesn't suddenly change meanings simply because we moved from a movie or book to a game, it's all the same.
captcha: heated debate
NO IT'S NOT
NO IT'S NOT, YOU STOP THAT
Also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm working off what I know here, but it bugs me when that word gets misused (mostly because I used to do it and felt like a dumbass after)
It's called making a bad game/not a game/minimalist game/... story-driven game, or, in the case of Cage, an interactive movie. Pretentious, as in pretense, as in assumption, means that the creators of the [insert whatever shit with a narrative here] automatically assume a role of self-import by providing you with a sense of an all-powerful/deep/meaningful narrative and philosophical questions, but being, in reality, completely shallow.
There's nothing pretentious about a game that sacrifices gameplay for narrative. It's pretentious of that narrative is entirely predictable, ham-fisted, obvious, shoved in your mouth by an evil version of Oprah Winfrey who seems to think that it's the next best fucking thing since sliced bread and God's Gift to the Medium. It's trying too hard and falling short, essentially. It's like a whole movie talking about the consumer culture with the only message being a very obvious "IT'S BAD TO EAT TOO MUCH GREASY FOOD KIDS". It fails to impress and just comes off as annoying. (unintentional moviebob reference, fuck me NOW PEOPLE WILL THINK I'M AN ASSHOLE)
What you put in the parentheses is actually what pretension is.Dirty Hipsters said:
To everyone: Please for the love of god stop using the word "pretentious" when describing certain types of art direction or narrative structure that involves subversion. That's not pretentious (IT CAN BE, BUT IT'S NOT A HAND-IN-HAND).
Maybe I'm constricting the term. But being annoyed with a game for missing an element of gameplay is just the game being annoying/poorly designed. The term doesn't suddenly change meanings simply because we moved from a movie or book to a game, it's all the same.
captcha: heated debate
NO IT'S NOT
NO IT'S NOT, YOU STOP THAT
Also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm working off what I know here, but it bugs me when that word gets misused (mostly because I used to do it and felt like a dumbass after)
Can you find a core idea in the game that the player can relate to? If yes then the game is at least somewhat deep. That's really all there is to it, if a game can successfully make the player think about a certain issue, then it really is deep. If an indie game uses a minimalist aesthetic and sub-par mechanics but doesn't do anything with them, then it's pretentious. If a AAA game tacks on some generic, obvious moral like 'war is bad' onto its pre-rendered cutscenes but spends most of the gameplay having fun with war scenarios, then it's pretentious. Obviously this is a very simple explanation, and whether or not something is actually talking about something often depends on the interpretation (I can easily construe MasterChief and Cortana's relationship in Halo CE for a satire on gender inequality, but I sincerely doubt that's the intention), but hopefully this gives some idea of how to determine whether or not something is pretentious.Pink Gregory said:
Edit: The post above me (who posted before I finished typing, gives a pretty good explanation as well.
well to me a game would be pretentious if it tackled themes, gameplay etc it had little idea on but acted them out with the conviction it did out of some desire to impress and show how sophisticated or avant garde etc it is.
For gameplay this is pretty hard I mean usually its just broken and you would say it badly made rather than pretentious but for dialogue its much easier.
I really cant bring to mind any game I would call pretentious though I am sure there are some out there but I dont think I have played them.
For gameplay this is pretty hard I mean usually its just broken and you would say it badly made rather than pretentious but for dialogue its much easier.
I really cant bring to mind any game I would call pretentious though I am sure there are some out there but I dont think I have played them.
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I do think that you're constricting the term, and I do indeed think that the term has different meanings in regards to movies, video games, and books.Ferisar said:
A novel is pretentious if the author crams it full of philosophical bullshit rather than actual plot.
A movie is pretentious if the director focuses more on making the movie have weird aesthetics rather than an interesting plot that you can actually follow (see a ton of indie movies, and some of the crappier Tim Burton movies, and Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch).
A game is pretentious if the author focuses resources away from the gameplay of the game, and puts them into the story and art direction, and it's extra pretentious if the story and art direction end up sucking.
You see, in each case what's pretentious about the work is that the creator perceives his own style and message to be more important than the enjoyment of his audience, and essentially sabotages his/her work for that purpose. The way in which the pretentiousness occurs is different for each medium, because each medium relies on different things to get information across, and has different ways of engaging the audience. So when talking about games, the gameplay does in fact become paramount when talking about pretentiousness.
But essentially the take away is, pretentiousness is when the creator of a work thinks that his enjoyment of his work is more important than his audience's enjoyment of his work, and when the creator forgets that his role is that of an entertainer. How this pretentiousness rears it's head depends on what kind of work the creator is a creator of.
You can't have a pretentious game. Pretentious can only be applied to people... and in that case we have to look at the devs. Well... I can't think of a game dev who I can think of as pretentious. Some game devs don't deliver what they promise, but they don't come across as over selling themselves, they are just overzealous and excessively ambitious and ultimately limited by the technology and deadlines.
I think there a lot more actors, movie directors and movie writers who are pretentious than their gaming equivalents... probably because you don't see the faces behind the games as much.
I think there a lot more actors, movie directors and movie writers who are pretentious than their gaming equivalents... probably because you don't see the faces behind the games as much.
In any medium, a story is pretentious when some aspect of it is sacrificed for the sake of the author. While sending the audience a message can be a good thing, it ALWAYS takes second place to the story (and in games the gameplay). What makes any story pretentious is the author believing that sending their message is more important than the enjoyment of the audience.
As I understand, the actual definition of 'pretension' comes from the word "pretend".
Wouldn't that make almost all media 'pretentious' in one form or another?
It kind of sounds like one of those words who's original meaning has been completely forgotten or lost.
Wouldn't that make almost all media 'pretentious' in one form or another?
It kind of sounds like one of those words who's original meaning has been completely forgotten or lost.
I would have to see said game first to make that judgement. It's the same if you were to ask 'What makes a game truly good?' You can't really tell untill the game is infront of you, and you can see what it's comprised of and how the individual pieces come together.
You can have two games which are essentially the same in story and characters, yet one can come across pretentious while the other is profound.
It's also very much in the eye of the beholder.
You can have two games which are essentially the same in story and characters, yet one can come across pretentious while the other is profound.
It's also very much in the eye of the beholder.
I thought pretending is what word "playing" is all about. If game wants to pretend it's something more and I'm willing to suspend that disbelief then mission fucking accomplished. And for games especially. If we agree that games are art then they can be perceived differently and if they are interactive art you should be able to change the way you perceive the game to suit you the best.
For example, Binding of Isaac is fun game with bunch of poop, blood and religious symbols thrown together. I don't think even author is trying to pretend there is anything deeper to it but I was looking for hidden meanings there anyway because it made the game more fun for me.
When I don't like pretension is when it is used to hide objective facts. Story, atmosphere or any kind of hidden meaning are subjective. When some game is made to look like the next grand step in gaming and often times is even marketed like that but has objectively less gameplay depth and features than previous game in series (I'm looking at you, Skyrim), then that's just lying to me.
For example, Binding of Isaac is fun game with bunch of poop, blood and religious symbols thrown together. I don't think even author is trying to pretend there is anything deeper to it but I was looking for hidden meanings there anyway because it made the game more fun for me.
When I don't like pretension is when it is used to hide objective facts. Story, atmosphere or any kind of hidden meaning are subjective. When some game is made to look like the next grand step in gaming and often times is even marketed like that but has objectively less gameplay depth and features than previous game in series (I'm looking at you, Skyrim), then that's just lying to me.
Uhm. Actually the Binding of Isaac is incredible deep. Edmund McMillen is actually known for using strong symbolism to tell the story while playing the game.Vhite said:
The Intro and the 13 Endings are all metaphors/allegories, also the name of the character and the title of the game are very important and the items/enemies round everything up.
There, i even managed to get the link: http://www.twinfinite.net/blog/2012/10/01/big-sloppy-slomper-chompers/
Even McMillen said it's the most accurate fan-explanation of the game.
The dictionary definition of the word is largely irrelevant here since it obviously doesn't fit the situations the OP described. Language is a democracy and the meaning of a word changes depending on how the majority of people use it, regardless of how you feel about it (literally *grumble grumble*).Zhukov said:
Despite that I could have worded my post better. What I should have said was that an author is being pretentious when they act as if the message they are trying to send makes up for the shortcomings of the story as a whole and suddenly turns it into a "deep and meaningful" masterpiece. A shallow and boring story with a message to send is hardly any more "deep and meaningful" than simply writing the message out on a piece of paper.
As for whether a piece of media can be pretentious? Well simply put no, and it would be easy to assume that when someone accuses a work of being pretentious, they're accusing the people who worked on it of being pretentious. I however think that most people are actually accusing the fans of a work of being pretentious, which is usually a much more valid claim. Fans of a story praise its depth and complexity so that others will consider them intelligent and sophisticated people, not because the story itself has any real merit.
What i wanted to say in my post, was basically someone using the gaming platform for his artsy bullshit, and then going "Look, i made a story driven game and give you a message! Im so clever!" despite the fact hes not actually taking advantage of the whole "game" thing.Zhukov said:
If this, in fact doesnt fit the description, im wrong and i apologize. I took it in the context of someone thinking he can use the label "Art-Game" while not actually understanding half of it and delivering that railroad-story-stuff. Which would go into your "Displaying books that i didnt actually read." example.