What Makes A Game Truly Pretentious

[BloodSquirrel]

I'm sorry, but I've heard this criticism before of dramatic films, or books, or games, or songs...this "it was manipulating me into feeling sad". It's ludicrous.

Of COURSE they're trying to make you feel an emotion. That's the POINT. You're not being "tricked" into feeling any more than a comedy "tricks" you into laughing by being funny, or a horror movie "tricks" you into being afraid by being scary. Media evoking emotion shouldn't be viewed as some kind of sham or hustle.

"Beethoven's 5th makes me weep, it's so beautiful!"
"Ha! You've been played for a fool! He wanted you feel that!"

The entire notion of it makes my brain hurt. It gives me THOUGHT CANCER. That's how ridiculous it is.

*Ahem*

An important part of storytelling is keeping the audience from noticing the strings being pulled. If you feel like you're being manipulated, usually because the author is being too heavy handed, transparent, or can't maintain immersion, then the work has failed and isn't having its desired effect.

What's ridiculous is expecting someone to cry over a fictional entity who does not exist "dying" in the first place.

 

[Festus Moonbear]

The word has lost all meaning and is now applied to anything that is different from the norm. Simplistic modern shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield are way more pretentious than Dear Esther or Gone Home, because in those games they're "pretending" that the story, setting, characters are important when actually they're just vehicles for the gameplay,* and they're "pretending" that the USA is a heroic force for good and the poverty-stricken under-equipped people they're fighting with their zillion-dollar army are the bad guys, and so on. There is so much "pretence" in those games that they effectively can't be parodied. As for Dear Esther - what's pretentious about it? It's the story of a man who has suffered an incredible loss trying to deal with that loss in the only way he can - it has a lot of purple prose, but I took that as being the character's voice rather than the game creator's voice; and some people really use language that way, so how is that fake? What is it "pretending" to be? A real story about real people rather than a coked-up Hollywood fantasy? What a crime! It is what it is, and that's the opposite of pretentious.

*Yes, that gameplay is often awesome, but that's to the side as far as this issue goes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

*Ahem*

An important part of storytelling is keeping the audience from noticing the strings being pulled. If you feel like you're being manipulated, usually because the author is being too heavy handed, transparent, or can't maintain immersion, then the work has failed and isn't having its desired effect.

What's ridiculous is expecting someone to cry over a fictional entity who does not exist "dying" in the first place.

So exactly what is the threshold for "sufficient manipulation, but not too much"? Is it 6 teaspoons of manipulation? ALL fictional works that are attempting to evoke emotion are "manipulating" you. Whether or not someone chooses to interpret that as "feeling manipulated" is usually down to their paranoia.

If I sit down to watch a comedy, I expect everyone involved is going to be working hard to make me laugh. At no point do I leap from my seat and say "gadzooks, I've been MANIPULATED into laughing! I've been played for a fool!". At worst, I will find the results of their efforts unfunny, because the "manipulation" has failed.

As for crying over fictional entities...can you explain why this is ridiculous? It's a natural by product of empathy. I realize that's in low supply on internet forums, but I wasn't aware we'd arrived at the point where we considered it "ridiculous".

 

[WanderingFool]

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.

Did you steal that format from Jeff Foxworthy?

Anyways, there are a lot of games I could and would call pretentious (most anything from David Cage, for example), but the thing is, there will be people that will disagree with me. Thats because pretentious is a subjective term, and is no different from opinions. Actually, pretentious is really just a opinion.

I was going to use Steven Wright, but the tone's really hard to get across in text.

*deadpan face*

I played a pretentious indie game the other day. I unlocked the achievement "Appreciate emptiness."

*watches a video of Steven Wright...*

Yeah, you do lose alot of it through text... good call then.

 

[Mikejames]

1. Turning a single comment into an lengthy exposition and/or making every conversation a meandering, "thoughtful" tour through the writer's mind is generally a sign of pretentiousness. (See: Braid)

4. If the game feels the need to take a great story, such as The Sands of Time Trilogy from Prince of Persia, and "improve" on this by challenging your notions or making it more "intellectually stimulating", then the game is probably pretentious (See: Braid, BioShock Infinite).

You know, initially I didn't mind the bouts of text that Braid had. They were wordy, but I thought it could be an interesting reflection of what certain puzzles represented in personifying relationships.
What made me think that things genuinely tipped into pretentious territory was the epilogue. An anti-climactic section of finding disjointed exposition that totally undermined what the rest of the game looked like it was trying to represent by implying it was all meant to be an-

Spoiler

allegory for the development of the atomic bomb?

Bioshock infinite started to lose me with the the quantum physics as well. Not a bad game, and some interesting foreshadowing for replays, but I think the overall theme of it lost weight in the process.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

So exactly what is the threshold for "sufficient manipulation, but not too much"? Is it 6 teaspoons of manipulation? ALL fictional works that are attempting to evoke emotion are "manipulating" you. Whether or not someone chooses to interpret that as "feeling manipulated" is usually down to their paranoia.

Paranoia? You've got some serious problems about the way you see other people.

It isn't about "too much manipulation", it's about whether the manipulation becomes obvious to the audience and subsequently ineffective. It's about when people roll their eyes at the littlest cancer patient because it's too cliche for them not to immediately think "Oh, they're trying to make me sad now".

As for crying over fictional entities...can you explain why this is ridiculous? It's a natural by product of empathy. I realize that's in low supply on internet forums, but I wasn't aware we'd arrived at the point where we considered it "ridiculous".

Being a product of human emotion doesn't makes something not ridiculous. Human emotions are, in fact, generally the root cause of things which can be described as "ridiculous".

 

[Bad Jim]

The genius strives for clarity, so his ideas can be understood. The pretentious strive for opacity, so people do not realise that they have nothing to say.

It can be difficult to say for certain whether something is pretentious. If it is pretentious you won't get it, because there is nothing to get, but if it was deep you might not get it either. However, if the author appears to be striving for opacity rather than clarity, that is a big red flag that he is being pretentious.

 

[MarsProbe]

Seems like the new trend to call a game "pretentious" or "sexist" or any other combination of adjectives instead of just simply saying "I don't like the game's story/design/plot". And forget about explaining why one would think such things either, that's just crazy talk.

I'm not sure what I like more, sexist pretentiousness or pretentious sexism. Thoughts?

Other than that, I can't say I have anything to add in this matter because frankly, I have better things to do with my time. Oh, but I did see someone use the phrase "ludo narrative dissonance" somewhere in this topic. I hate that phrase - whoever came up with it should be erased from existence.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Paranoia? You've got some serious problems about the way you see other people.

I have a problem with anyone who makes the statement "When people have X reaction to Y game, I want to tell them they've been played for a fool", yes. And my problem with them is that what they've said is hilariously silly.

It isn't about "too much manipulation", it's about whether the manipulation becomes obvious to the audience and subsequently ineffective. It's about when people roll their eyes at the littlest cancer patient because it's too cliche for them not to immediately think "Oh, they're trying to make me sad now".

It would seem to me the issue is that the film wasn't "manipulative" enough. If it had been, it would've "manipulated" everyone into feeling sad for the poor little cancer patient.

Cliche, of course, is an entirely different subject. Unless it is your conjecture that all bad or lazy writing falls under the umbrella of "making the audience feel manipulated".

Being a product of human emotion doesn't makes something not ridiculous. Human emotions are, in fact, generally the root cause of things which can be described as "ridiculous".

Eh, fair enough, but as a human with emotions of my own I hesitate to issue value judgments about them unless they're openly destructive. And frankly, the way you framed your statement...

What's ridiculous is expecting someone to cry over a fictional entity who does not exist "dying" in the first place.

You've indicated the EXPECTATION OF IT HAPPENING is ridiculous. Not the event itself. And I'm still not sure why that's ridiculous. One could argue the vast majority of popular entertainment is structured around the acknowledgement that we're emotional, and can be provoked into feeling those emotions.

EDIT: I found a thread of film buffs having more or less the same "manipulation" discussion we're having here, if that interests you. People arguing on both sides.

http://mubi.com/topics/manipulative-films?page=1

Post from the first page I generally agree with:

All cinema is manipulative. How much is a matter of design.

The flickering images manipulate your senses regardless of the kind of film?the spectator is manipulated into the experience of the film.

The degree of manipulation varies depending on the intent of the film.

The Passion of Joan of Arc manipulates without a single sound. You feel one way before you watch it and a different way when it?s over. You?ve been manipulated into feeling that way (beautifully, in my opinion).

Strip away plot and narrative. Lighting is manipulative. Sound is manipulative. The placement of the camera is manipulative.

It?s the placement of the spectator vis a vis the director?s intent, and even further?you bring your own context to the film which takes on a life of its own. You participate in the manipulation to some degree.

Although I'm sure you'll find counterpoints in there just as compelling. It's a good discussion.

And I think this...

Or to put it another way, people don?t seem to be bothered by manipulation that takes them where they want to go, only that which takes them somewhere they don?t. So the question is; is something manipulative if it creates agreement or only when it creates disapproval?

Is illustrative of why these "sad things are manipulating me!" complaints are so commonplace.

 

[thatonedude11]

People can be pretentious. A person who believes that they are creating something monumental is pretentious. Someone who looks down on other people for being too shallow is pretentious. Someone who just thinks they are more important than everyone else is pretentious. A game, being a non-thinking creation by a human, cannot be pretentious.

Calling a game pretentious, to me, is criticizing the game for even trying to be more than just a game and trying to push boundaries. Isn't a game trying to be something more, even if it fails miserably, something good? And yet, every time a game like Dear Esther or To the Moon comes out, we have people seemingly condemning the very notion that games should even try to be artistic. And that makes me very sad.

 

[Zhukov]

snip

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*).

Dude... what?

Yes, language and the meaning of words changes over time. But that doesn't mean you can just say, "Language is, like, a democracy, man", then ignore the correct meaning of a given word.

Besides, given that I'm seeing at least five different meanings for one word being used here, I think your democracy is a bit of a mess.

 

[Olas]

How about:

When a game employs, or references highly intellectual concepts only for the purpose of being (or being perceived as) intellectual, and not because the creator had a specific intellectual statement he wanted to make in the first place.

Perhaps also:

When a game breaks genre conventions only to be different and not because the developer felt the traditional conventions are inadequate for telling the story correctly.

 

[prpshrt]

Pointing fun at other games openly by adding idiotic references in your game or openly saying something about an other game in a negative light. I found torchlight II to be in that camp somewhat. The devs laughed at the number of people that were angry with d3 and that they were piggybacking on d3's failure to meet expectations.

 

[lumenadducere]

People throw around pretentious all the time, just because they think "oh this is trying to be artsy" or "oh this story is supposed to be deep but I don't like it" and somehow they think that that makes the game pretentious. No, no it doesn't. If the game espouses its superiority to other non-artsy games or if the creator does, then yes, it's pretentious. But just because a game is doing something different it doesn't mean that it's pretentious. Maybe it's not doing well, maybe it's not enjoyable, but it isn't pretentious unless it's claiming to be better than others.

As an example: Inception, if it were just made and released, would not have been pretentious. What made it pretentious was the fact that Christopher Nolan straight up told critics that they were dumb and didn't get it if they had problems with the movie. That's pretension (although in this case I guess it's more that Nolan is pretentious rather than Inception itself). If he hadn't said that stuff it would have just been an interesting movie about his personal ideas, and that's totally fine in any medium, whether movies, games, or books. That's what people do, they express themselves, and it's also fine if you disagree with their views or dislike their work. It's only a bad thing if they say that their expression is inherently worth more than the expressions of others.

Another example: Phil Fish is pretentious because he's said on multiple occasions that his detractors and other game devs aren't as good and that he's clearly better than they are. If he hadn't done that he wouldn't be pretentious because he wouldn't have espoused his superiority.

Example of the opposite: Limbo when it came out was just the devs making this game and putting it out there. There were lots of people on forums (including here on The Escapist) who just mocked the artstyle and said "oh it's so pretentious, it's black and white." No, Limbo isn't pretentious because it at no point in time said it was superior, nor did its creators say that they felt it was. They just made a product and put it out there and people immediately went "artsy, thus pretentious."

You don't like games lacking in gameplay or going in different directions or putting an emphasis on characters/narrative/whatever then that's totally okay! You don't have to. But for goodness' sake, please stop saying it's pretentious. It's dishonest and insulting of the game and its creators because you're basically saying they're full of themselves when all they did was create something and put it out there. There are plenty of games out there that the devs just put out without any commentary and yet people jump on the "ermagerd, it's artsy so it's pretentious" bandwagon. Stop. Just stop it. Learn the meaning of the word "pretentious" and then learn that subjective opinion is not fact. And then accept that it's okay for people to like different things and that it's not okay for you to be insulting of it.

 

[alphamalet]

I don't think a lot of people here understand the definition of pretentious. It is rather hard for a game to make an unjustifiably and excessive claim about it's own importance, and it's hard for a game to express an overly flattering opinion of its importance. I think the developers behind the games can do this easily and thus be pretentious, but most people seem to be picking on games with minimalistic gameplay and distinct art styles that they don't like.

Hell, I really REALLY don't like The Walking Dead, which has nearly nonexistent gameplay and a distinct art style, but I'm not calling it pretentious; I'll call it a bad game IMO.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

So, how does one determine what is actually 'deep'?

Does it make you think about the choices and actions in the game and make you look at yourself as a person, or does it just make you go "WTF was the author of this huffing?!?"

It will differ for every person, but the main difference between deep and shallow or pretentious and artsy is how successful the artist is at getting you to think. If you are actually thinking about stuff because the game presented it in a way that intrigued you, then it is deep and artistic, even if that subject seems childish or simple, but if all you are thinking about is the flaws of the game or story then it's shallow, or if the force of the message pushed on you by the creator is so strong that it actually distracts you from the message then it's getting into pretentious territory.

(also I would consider it pretentious if it's just a bunch of random, artistic symbolism selected for no real reason by the creator with no actual true definition rubbed in your face wailing what does it mean to yooooooouuuuu?, but that's just me.)

 

[deathbydeath]

Woah, hold the phone there champ, what exactly gives you the right to just dismiss my statement?[sup]1[/sup] Are you honestly saying that the pretentious fuck[sup]2[/sup] who ripped off decade old Japanese video game cliches[sup]3[/sup] for a cheap nostalgia cash in[sup]4[/sup] and then proceeded to call Japanese games shit[sup]5[/sup] isn't pretentious?[sup]6[/sup] The same pretentious[sup]7[/sup] fuck who later canceled his sequel because he got trolled on the fucking internet? Who essentially pulled the "I'm taking my toys and going home" move?[sup]8[/sup]

I'm sorry, how about you shut the fuck up until you can be relevant?

Alright, I'll give it a shot:

1: Your statement was wrong and didn't answer the question in a manner that made sense.
2: Redundant word is redundant.
3: Fez is an homage to the games Fish played as a child, and was specifically designed to recreate that sense of wonder he felt in the player. An homage is not a rip off. Learn what words mean before you use them.
4: You're assuming author intent here, but given the development issues [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez_(video_game)#Development] Fez went through, the phrase "cash-in" is hardly appropriate. Learn what words mean.
5: Nope, not even close. To quote Fish himself: "And people have gotten it wrong. I said modern Japanese games suck," Emphasis mine.
6: No, it isn't. Even if what you said was true (which it isn't), Fish would've been a hypocrite, not pretentious. Learn what words mean.
7: You know what I'm about to say.
8: He didn't really take his toys home with him; he just stopped playing with them and walked away after the barrage of asshattery and uninformed rage inflicted upon him for something that wasn't really his fault.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

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

If I don't, it's pretentious.

Damn, I was gonna make that joke you bastard!

I think pretentious is when someone involved in DmC desribes the writing as "Shakespearian," and that's only if they weren't being tongue in cheek. And that wouldn't necessarily make the game itself pretentious, either. I think it was a voice actor who said that, not the writer or director.

Or maybe a game that tries to tackle heavy themes for accolades rather than simply because it matters to the creator? But I don't see how we could ever *know* that was the intention without asking them.

Something that tries to tackle heavy or lofty themes, but does so clumsily isn't pretentious, it just wasn't well executed.

 

[EyeReaper]

I think the only way you can call a game pretentious is if you truly believe it is pretentious.
Lemme explain
You could see something and think it is the funniest thing ever, but the guy next to you might not even chuckle. There is no line that guarantees "This is funny" and "This is not." Mostly due to humor being very subjective. I believe pretentiousness is applied the same way, in that, two people can play the same game. and one could say "My god... this has shaken me to my core, my life will never be the same" and the other "Pah! the guy who made this game is just spewing bullshit" If you asked both of them if the work was pretentious, you'd probably get different answers, right?

 

[deathbydeath]

Whatever you say you insulting[sup]1[/sup] hipster[sup]2[/sup] fanboy[sup]3[/sup], if I wanted to I could easily pick your post apart point for point just to point out how ignorant your rhetoric is, but I honestly don't care.[sup]4[/sup] Keep worshiping that childish indie developer dick[sup]5[/sup] while talking down to others as if you're something special[sup]6[/sup], I'm sure it will get you far in life.[sup]7[/sup]

Here goes round two:

1: Ironically, this is the first insult in this conversation.
2: Nope, learn what words mean.
3: I'm fairly indifferent to Fish, as well as his game.
4: Okay, sure. Tell your Canadian girlfriend I said hi.
5: I don't particularly care about Phil Fish, you were just wrong. While I do own Fez, that is a result of the recent HIB deal, and I still don't particularly care to play it.
6: I've never acted like or said I was special; you're assuming again.
7: Okay, and how about you continue misinforming yourself, pulling irrational biased conclusions out of God knows where, being needlessly hostile, and forgetting that there's a thing called "reason". Good luck; you'll need it.