The Totally Real Dictionary Created by Me for the Purpose of This Introduction defines referential humour as this: "a lazy attempt to hide one's comedic inadequacy by stealing superior creator's work in order to provoke laughter in an audience."

That's the video game definition of referential humor, anyway. Movies and TV shows have learnt to incorporate it cleverly, to use it as another tool in a large diverse box rather than a centerpiece, as movies like Hot Fuzz and shows like Arrested Development have shown us. Games still have a long way to come in this regard, as roughly 99.99% of popular indie games use references as a detrimental comedy crux. 

Let's take a look at some games that do this. Guacamelee has signs posted everywhere that refer to insanity wolf and various other memes. Games like Super Meat Boy incorporate other game's charactersas unlockable player skins. 'Splosion Man steals just about every joke from Portal that it can get away with. And Borderlands 2 sacrifices its villain's menace in order to throw quotes from movies at you. It's insulting that this industry relies so much on nostalgia that would rather remind you of jokes from the past than come up with original content. 

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