What Makes A Game Truly Pretentious

[Guitarmasterx7]

If your game reeks of artsy fartsiness for no particular reason that's a pretty good indicator it's pretentious. Limbo is a perfect example. No dialog or words at all. The color palette is on a slider of black to white and every shade of grey in between. You play as a child in a dark and hostile world. Did it have a message? Did it have a point? I can't think of one.

Spoiler: It seemed like they were going for something at the end, but then 10 seconds later they shot it in the foot and then rolled the credits.

At the end of the game, you do something which sends you back to the exact same place and scenario of the game. Being as the game is called "Limbo" I thought "oh cool, so it's a loop. That's pretty clever" but then a girl shows up, implying that's who you were looking for and you won the game.

So you've created this tone and art style... why then? It doesn't serve any purpose and there's not really a point to it. It dangles the prospect of depth in front of you the whole time and then it doesn't pay off by the time its over. That's how I would define a pretentious game.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I find Dear Esther pretentious because they are trying to cover a very shallow story as somebthing immensly deep and layered by throwing big words and metaphors around in a way that looks very much like a parody of an arthouse film, while being completely deadpan serious about the whole thing. Its ridiculous, lines like: "Boxes upon boxes of antacid yoghurt" kinda sums it all up nicely.

The amateur game falled I Remember The Rain is probably the best example of this, try finding it on google, it's hilarious!

 

[Lieju]

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).

So most of the action pop-corn movies are pretentious? I think that only applies if they are pretending it has some deeper meaning. If they just go 'yeah, I just think it looks pretty.' it's not.

I'd say a game is pretentious if it pretends to be deeper than it is or if it uses symbolism and themes without even understanding them. And especially if it masks it's lack of answers in obstructive bullshit.

 

[gunny1993]

Well mostly people just misuse the word; when what they want to say is "I didn't appreciate what the game was trying to do"

To my mind the only way a game can be pretentious was if say CoD started quoting Keats for no reason. I.E. a shallow game tries to make a clearly shallow story seem profound by referencing a work of far higher caliber.

Generally it's easier to see if people are being pretentious, because you can question them and find out that they have little knowledge of what they speak.

 

[rbstewart7263]

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.

I somehow want to encapsulate the last thing you said for use later! lmao too true.

 

[imagiNe]

"Boxes upon boxes of antacid yoghurt" kinda sums it all up nicely

I registered to ask: Is that line REALLY in the game?

 

[MrBaskerville]

"Boxes upon boxes of antacid yoghurt" kinda sums it all up nicely

I registered to ask: Is that line REALLY in the game?

Yeah, he says it in a very brooding and aggresive way, it's knda odd. I hink it's when he's describing the wreckage of a ship (atleast in some runs, since it's random which lines you get to hear) and apparently the ship is filled with boxes of yoghurt.

Just rechecked and i might have paraphrased a bit, he actually says: There was a large quantity of Antacid Yoghurt.
But you just can't get away with lines about yoghurt when everything is delivered so broodingly.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I'm rather tempted to throw Bioware on that list. I really am. I might give some exception to Dragon Age: Origins, but overall Bioware really tends to rehash a lot of the same themes from title to title. And many of their characters follow the same kind of formula that Bioware's used in all their previous games. Same with the plot... and the game progression. Yet Bioware and fans alike seem to paint their games as fantastic works of art?

And to more directly answer the topic's posed question. I'd say what truly makes a game pretentious, is simply when it tries to make the story, or the characters seem deeper than they really are, while failing to do so convincingly.

Maybe because it actually relies on tropes in an effort to invoke strong emotions, or maybe because it uses cookie cutter techniques to put a story together. On the artistic side, I'd say if the developers take themselves or the theme in the game far far more seriously than the subject matter can support.

Tl;dr: Artificial substance that's expected to be taken as genuine substance.

 

[Vern5]

I'm rather tempted to throw Bioware on that list. I really am. I might give some exception to Dragon Age: Origins, but overall Bioware really tends to rehash a lot of the same themes from title to title. And many of their characters follow the same kind of formula that Bioware's used in all their previous games. Same with the plot... and the game progression. Yet Bioware and fans alike seem to paint their games as fantastic works of art?

That doesn't make Bioware pretentious. It does make them very, very lazy. It also makes their fans very shallow since they can't seem to discern the same narrative structure or character archetypes from game to game. Many failings all around. But the games are not pretentious. The players are possibly pretentious but that's an unrelated topic.

 

[Vhite]

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.
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.

Huh, that's deeper than I thought but when I wrote that I was thinking more of people who make religious fan fiction out of that game. It's not THAT deep.

 

[KOMega]

The problem here I think is that we are trying to objectively define a subjective attribute.

Still...
I'd like to think that how deep something is as opposed to pretentious is something similar to:

(Gameplay and mechanics / player effort and time involved) * deepness and meaning of message

where the more time and effort the player invests, the more "engaging" (couldn't think of another word so whatever) the game must be.
Then if the message it was delivering had any depth by itself to begin with.

 

[Alcaste]

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.

I...What? Excuse me? Did you just put crisis of faith, suicide, abortion, neglect and self-loathing alongside poop? Yeah... You might want to play Binding of Isaac for more than a couple of minutes :\


As far as pretentious games, I really don't see the problem with them in most cases. I only get rubbed the wrong way by them when the developers themselves seem to be in on it, breaking the fourth wall (intentionally or not) when it isn't necessary. Games like (Heh) The Fourth Wall and The Stanley Parable do it correctly.

I especially don't like when, as said before, the developers say things like "It will change the way you will think about ________" when the game itself amounts to very little.

 

[Bruce]

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)

Isn't that just Oprah Winfrey?

 

[Ruzinus]

Well clearly, if I like it, it's deep.

If I don't, it's pretentious.

And if it's by Kojima or Suda51, it's batshit cray cray.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Well clearly, if I like it, it's deep.

If I don't, it's pretentious.

Sounds about right for the average gamer's use of 'pretentious'...

I personally always come across the idea, when I think about this, that a game on it's own cannot be judged as 'pretentious' independently of it's developers because it's ultimately open to interpretation. How can you judge a game being 'humble' or not?

 

[Padwolf]

To be honest I am not entirely sure how to apply the word pretentious to a game. If we are going to call games pretentious then I would say that The Graveyard is a pretentious game. I have played many that some have deemed pretentious, Dear Esther, The Path, Fatale, Gone Home, To The Moon and all of them have left me with something to think about. But The Graveyard... just no. It baffles me. Also the fact that the demo and the actual game are pretty much the same thing baffles me. It does try to be deep and meaningful, when to me it just isn't. However it is a bit weird to call a game pretentious.

 

[lacktheknack]

Apparently, language is a democracy now.

This means that a "pretentious game" is one that "I don't like and it looks pretty and stylish".

For example, if people call "The Path" pretentious, I want to hurt them, but that's because I liked it. If pretentiousness is now subjective, I guess this means I'm free of the need to injure people who use it in a way that would previously be noted as "freaking wrong".

 

[Clowndoe]

I don't think any game is pretentious by nature, nor is any work of art, because it all depends on context and the intent of the author. Valuing story and feels while not having traditionally "fun" gameplay isn't pretentious, whereas stating that only a philistine could not appreciate your game for it is pretentious. Likewise, trying to get a message across isn't any more so, even if your delivery is ham-fisted and falls flat, unless the creator implies that this is some sort of immutable truth that he is bestowing upon you in his benevolence.

What do I think is pretentious? Saying that games are all about the gameplay and having fun, just as much as saying that games aren't worth it if there's no story or artsy value.

 

[Lilani]

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.

And what exactly would you consider "taking advantage of the whole 'game' thing?" Why should that be a requirement? There are whole art movements based around deconstructing the typical definition of what a certain medium is. Look at Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rauschenberg#The_White_Paintings.2C_Black_Paintings.2C_and_Red_Paintings]. That's a Wikipedia article on them, and here [http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/singular_forms/images/artworks/image_1a.jpg] is one of the paintings in this series at the Guggenheim museum. That's all it is--a bunch of blank, white panels. Rauschenberg even gave instructions to those who put his works on display, saying if they got dirty somehow to get white paint and recover them themselves. He describes the white paintings as "a landing pad for shadows." Essentially, the goal of the painting was to not get you to observe what was going on with the painting, but to attune you to what was going on around you. To observe how you interact with the piece, and how the piece interacts with the space. While it's not really a "painting" as we know it, and certainly not taking advantage of what is typically marveled in paintings such as color, depth, form, detail, and texture, it's still an experiment which is at least in part derived from the medium.

And again, his pieces are in some of the most renowned museums in the world. I'm not saying Dear Esther is or should be as famous as the works of Rauschenberg, but I am saying it's rather pointless to begrudge a game for not following the parameters of what you consider to be a "game." Dear Esther never purported to be a "game" as we know it, it's just a different kind of experience that happens to use the same tools and medium that we typically consider are good for games. Personally I also think it could have benefited from a bit more interaction, but I can also appreciate how brave it was of them to so completely detach themselves from the elements which would have been so tempting to slip in there, like an inventory or using tools and such to solve puzzles and discover more things.