What Makes A Game Truly Pretentious

[Darmani]

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)

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).

What you put in the parentheses is actually what pretension is.

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)

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.

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.

I believe you're both correct. The first for exacting defintion. The next for practical application of the term in example

 

[Pink Gregory]

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

But who's to presuppose exactly what the audience enjoys?

You seem to have narrowed it down fairly confidently to 'plot' and 'gameplay', essentially negating contexts like setting.

In addition, I personally believe that it's entirely up to the audience to decide whether there's a 'message' contained in the game. Even Spec-Ops: the Line can be construed as only of import in it's own context, whether it's themes take on importance outside of it's own context is up to the player.

I doubt I'm going to change your mind, by your standards you probably hate a lot of the things I hold dear; but such is the subjective nature of appraising things.

 

[Darmani]

You can't really blame games and creators when in fact it's gaming journalism that's pretentious and the games themselves are mostly either victims or byproduct of the gatekeepers' power.

Gaming websites have been trying to manipulate the direction games are headed from a while already, specially independent games, and small developer's will always look for media-candy designs, be it game-less environments, click-flicks, oscar-bait life lessons, retro pixelart style, tackled-in female protagonists, or whatever else the pretentious journalism is on about, because that increases their chances of being covered and thus, discovered.

This reminds me so much of the formula for a Vertigo comic it isn't funny.

Really just consider it video gaming's "90s" or adolescence the grim years.

That said I like art games. C'mon look at at the works of Escher, Dali, or others and think "holy shit I wish I could jump in and explore and interact with that landscape/vista or physics.

The issue is that often its a matter of treating you like a tour group at a museum one who can't ask questions, talk about the subject, or given any OTHER interactivity or information. Just look and be amazed.

That's.. rather pretentious expecting praise and awe when being deliberately obfuscative or poorly communicating. Even works and things that make you think need to communicate the query well.

That said, yah, artists play to the crowd, scene, and its criers its their deep dark secret and why they act so above it all sometimes. All that skill, study, and effort for an elaborate "please pay attention to me"

 

[InfernalGrape]

Pretentious? What's wrong with you? The Path is as deep as it is. 0% of gameplay, but it's like a painting, which talks about this or that through visuals and sound.

 

[InfernalGrape]

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.

Well, maybe we can call Killer is Dead "pretentious" because he wants look as deep as killer7 but lacks height.
=_=

p.s.

sorry i thought that forum automerging messages 1 after 1

 

[Catrixa]

For me, something becomes pretentious when the artist made it deliberately vague and difficult to follow, then counters any criticism with, "it's clearly brilliant, you just didn't understand it!" If, at any point, you feel you've created an unparalleled masterpiece and have not been dead long enough for it to stand the actual test of time, you have reached conceit levels obsessive narcissists can only barely dream of. Bonus points should be awarded if your game is also borderline unplayable (not just buggy, not just poor controls, but an experience that actively drives away any immersion due to how horrible it is).

 

[WWmelb]

Pretentious:

1. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance, especially when exaggerated or undeserved:

Going by the definition, i do not see how a game can be pretentious. Or any other object. An object is just what it is, and cannot in and of itself assume dignity or importance, exaggerated or otherwise.

However: Creators of art (whether being a game, painting, song, movie, whatever) can certainly be pretentious by claiming undeserved importance of their creation.

The important thing is with the definition though is that an object cannot assume anything about itself, as it does not have a brain. It just is. Pretentiousness comes from those interacting with or creating said object.

For example "I am deeper than, and therefore more important than you, or better than you, because i profoundly understood and was affected by Dear Esther". That would be pretentious. The game is not, no matter how many people may utter words to that effect.

You could certainly argue that the dev's at The Chinese Room are pretentious for creating Dear Esther how it was, but that would be very subjective anyways.

Note: I have no problems with that game, just seems to be one that came up a lot during this thread. And to be honest i haven't heard or read anything from them that indicates that they think their game is majestically important to life the universe and everything, and personally think the dev's there have come across as quite humble actually.

I wish I could empathize with your stance and comparison, but the reason why I can't is because a piece of art in the physical sense of a painting is very, very different from a video game. We're talking here about a commercial product put into mass production and distribution for the purpose of making a profit.

On this, i have to disagree completely. Just because something is a commodity does not make it any less a piece of art than something created with no commercial consumption in mind.

Of the great artworks created over the years, especially painting, a whole heap of them were painted on commission, or created to sell once complete, thereby making them a commodity just as much as a video game is. Is the Sistine Chapel ceiling any less a work of art because the artist was paid to do it? Maybe some would argue that it is, but i certainly wouldn't. Many painters in the past, and now, create their artworks with the intent to sell them, thereby making them products, just like a video game.

So i would argue that this point is moot especially when it comes to this topic.