Is "pretentious" a bad word?

well when most people use the word  "pretentious" what they really mean is "your an asshole that think they are better than everyone else"

A pretentious movie or video game is one that tries to appear clever, deep and important, when in reality, it isn't. 
 
@Moeez said:

"It's like saying a video-game is "repetitive". No shit, Sherlock. You think you're going to be performing a thousand types of game-play in a single game?!"

" well when most people use the word  "pretentious" what they really mean is "your an asshole that think they are better than everyone else" "

No, because a normal person puts there work out there either asking "Am I good?" or just to entertain whoever find it entertaining and doesn't really care about critics or whether or not people consider it 'good' or not.
 
However a pretentious person puts their work out there saying "I'm the greatest" without recieveing any actual feedback, and really does it to just fuel their ego. This is why a lot of people regarded Avatar skeptically, because Cameron was being pretentious in talking about how great the film was before it was released. It is still a very pretentious film (it's dances with wolves with blue people and bits of Alien), but nevertheless an enjoyable and, granted, a good film. Pretentious is just when people assume because they've made it, it's good. I guess it's similiar to arrogance in that way.

well to me, being prententious is assuming a level of importance and brilliance, rather than earning it or putting it up for judgement. A film might deal with high brow themes and issues without really adressing them, it has nothing new to say, the auteur is just in the business of being highbrow. You can be in the business of making people feel intellingent by going to see your movies, rather than making an intelligent movie for people to think about.

my example would be Braid. that game was super pretentious. More so if you ever listened to the creator talk about it.

This thread for some reason reminds me of the preface to Dorian Gray. 
 
What qwicksilver said reminds me of the interview 1up did with Team Ico last year about Shadow of The Colossus and the conversation went along the route of we created a game first, if you found it to be emotional it was a side effect. And people in the comments kept criticizing that they were blind to the art within their own game. Reverse pretentious perhaps? People seeing more than was actually there.
 
 *Edit
I went to look up the article and the comments I was referring to were from a different site/forum commenting on the article. Slight confusing on my part.

" my example would be Braid. that game was super pretentious. More so if you ever listened to the creator talk about it."

" @HypoXenophobia:   Errr....no?  I don't see how the developers are acting with unwarrranted self-importance by saying they didn't intend for SOTC t.o be artsy They're just being honest, "

" my example would be Braid. that game was super pretentious. More so if you ever listened to the creator talk about it. "

"But, that does remind me: if anything annoys me more than shitty pretentious writers/artists its their dumbass fans who gobble up that shit. Also, this is pretty awesome and true(even though destructoid kinda sucks):
 http://www.destructoid.com/the-videogame-show-what-i-ve-done-art-games-163502.phtml "