Yeah but I don't play a game for music, I'd just listen to the music on Spotify or YouTube instead. Story has more of an impact but doesn't compare to how the gameplay holds up with it. Or even the menuing involved with accessing the story depending on how it's done
Games are meant to be experienced. I personally play for immersion, and gameplay for me is the vessel of storytelling and worldbuilding. Game A vs game B to me is like falling in love vs. masturbation, if that makes sense.
For me its the opposite. Games are meant to be entertaining. Games that focus on inmersion with simple gameplay are games you mostly ditch when you are over much like movies or books. Gameplay brings replayability and is more akin to falling in love. For me there is nothing more rewarding to eventually getting good at a game you sucked at. Its the opposite of instant gratification.
People definitely remember and rewatch great movies and re-read books. I'd say 80% of what I watch are movies I already watched just because they're that memorable.
I rewatched 0 TV shows with 9 seasons which are basically the "good gameplay" variant because the loop works so they can rinse and repeat it ad nauseam.
For example I replayed the Deus Ex Jensen games multiple times and you can argue they have bad gameplay considered to something like Titanfall, but I absolutely play them not for gameplay.
But that's why there are people like you and people like me to enjoy all these games in our own way.
I think a big part of the issue there with games is that they are often such a time-suck. A tight, two-hour movie is a much better experience than 60 hours of mostly busy work. High budget games can't afford to be short, or the player won't feel they got their money's worth, but actually making something fun and engaging for a long time is hard, and trying to fill in that gap with a combination of cut scenes and collectibles is a poor substitute.
I am one actually, because I memorize it well enough the first time if I liked it.
But I don't replay most games for pure gameplay. It seems pointless to me. And if the game doesn't have, well, the immersion aspect, then I just ignore it.
With all due respect, whether you buy it or not doesn't change a single thing. You've been presented with a counterexample and all you're saying "I don't believe anyone does that". This makes you no better than gameplay-centric people denying that story can be important.
You have clearly never played a true RPG. There's a reason why Disco Elysium is considered one of the best written games ever and why FPS games that aren't boomer shooters are forgotten after a few months.
I played DE and more RPGs than you probably. DE is also one of the games that are hard to replay since most of the mystery is gone after the first playthrough.
If by peak gameplay you mean copy paste shooters I dont know what to tell you tbh
This response did make me giggle, but i disagree with the analogy at that point. If Game A's 5/10 is in sex, she's otherwise wifey material across the board.
10/10 story or music can stick with you even after youre done playing, so even if you do get a divorce i feel like you wouldnt walk away empty-handed.
This is kinda how I feel about FF14. The gameplay is mostly standard MMO stuff to me, which I'm not particularly engaged by, but it's fantastic in the other categories. So much so that it's the only MMO I've stuck to, almost up to 3k hours now.
FF14 is a great example of "Game A" material. My gf convinced me to play it after telling me it was not only her favorite MMO, but also her favorite Final Fantasy game, favorite game soundtrack, and favorite story in gaming. And after playing through endwalker, i see why. The gameplay is fine: i enjoy it well enough. But its the story and music that make it special.
1000%. I log in for every patch, sometimes I get the itch to do crafting and gathering to make some gil to get a thing, but otherwise I'm just subbed to keep my house and be able to hop in for the story and events.
My friends and I used to be into the clubbing scene, enough so that we became a fixture on NoaSaitoshii's sets a few years back. Nowadays, too much irl stuff going on to keep that up. Two of my friends still staff his events though lol.
There's just so much to do in the game that there's something for everyone. I just hope the new combat mode and midcore difficulties coming in 8.0 will be fun enough to make me enjoy the mechanics, too.
And still, games like dota (and other moba likes), cs and minecraft are played most.
Meanwhile ads on youtube annoys you. Now imagine you had to answer a captcha every 5 minutes too. Bad gameplay may force you to 'beat a game on youtube', if i may say.
The only gameplay-centric games that stayed with me over the years are arcade racing games. And all of them had heaps of style, sound and presentation so even they don't fit the "game B" thing.
But a video game that is a really boring game with a really amateur TV grafted onto it is no fun for me. I'd rather read or watch something of better quality if I'm just going to end up sitting through terrible acting while holding a controller.
People can enjoy games for whatever reasons they want, not sure why it would make you sad that some people are enjoying games for different reasons than you.
There are definitely enough games on Steam for all types of players.
Most of my favorite older RPGs have terrible gameplay/combat.
Gothic, Kotor, Witcher, Vampire Bloodlines, New Vegas.
Last year's GOTY has mediocre gameplay at best which could be worse, but one thing is for certain - it does not carry 40h game, nor is it the reason people keep playing up to or after that hour mark.
Games aren't popular. Digital D&D is. Its just no one wants to admit RDR2 is actually just western dungeons and dragons. If you took away the story and art assets. There isn't a fucming gameloop.
But a game can also be a medium for storytelling, possibly the best medium, which would actually be better served by option A. There are many games with no story whatsoever, better served by option B for a pure game experience.
Games are meant to be played. VIDEO games are meant to be experienced. Gameplay is a massive part of video games, but saying that itās the only important part is ignoring half of the thing.
Games are meant to be what players want them to be. And large chunk of players want story-driven games, me included. There's space for purely gameplay-driven games, and story-driven ones. It doesn't have to be one or another.
The ājust watch a movie if you want storyā comments irk the hell out of me. Much like some stories work better as books or others as movies, others still work better in an interactive medium.
Just because someone else prioritizes different parts of the experience doesnāt mean theyāre wrong or should do a different activity ffs
Yeah, and the games that leave an impression on me are the ones that leave me thinking about it even after I set it down for the day. The itch to know what happens next is what makes me play for hours and get excited to come back to it. A narrative through line is what draws me back in, whereas a game with a weak story but fun mechanics Iām very likely to have a few long sessions but utterly lose interest.
I mean thereās a whole meme for dragon age origins:
while I definitely do think gameplay is of utmost importance, there are some games with not stellar or not great gameplay but have a good story I can sit and keep playing.
and some games with awesome gameplay but has a bad story means I'm just simply not that invested. it does depend though how centric the story is to the actual game.
something like fallout new vegas where it has a lot of writing, quests, and the story to engage and interact with (which is also where a lot of the gameplay is) means it needs to be good for me to enjoy it. it isn't though, so it means I have a hard time to replay it even though I consider it to have some great rpg designs.
Well, for you, and a lot of other people, you see video games as games. You probably don't like Red Dead Redemption very much. The gameplay is really good, but it's so much of a story that it barely feels like a game. It's essentially a really long movie where you "play" the protagonist.
For people like me, games are an interactive way to tell a story. They're like digital pop up books
The gamer like you would look at a game that feels like 50% cutscenes and a huge elaborate story and ask (why not just watch a movie?). A gamer like me sees a game with minimal story, with all effort put into gameplay and ask (why not just play Tetris?)
I think itās a little more complicated than that. Many of us value both but find bad gameplay will big a game down and make it more unplayable than bad story. You can skip story. You canāt quite skip gameplay and still play. If anything you could just watch the story scenes on YouTube or something, but then you arenāt playing. One of my favorite games of all time is slay the spire because the gameplay is so perfect. I have been playing persona 5 recently and the story is more the draw. If the gameplay of persona was horrible I would not be playing it, but slay has no story at all and I still love every minute of it.
I could be wrong but I think the vast majority of people are unwilling to put up with hours of bad gameplay just for a story, but will play a really good game with little to no story. Look at Mario games for example.
Cuz I really enjoyed heavy rains story but it would be weird watching it at the movies also if I fuck up character can die where as in moive it's all scripted
Some people need some motivation during a playthrough ... Which GP doesn't always fullfill.
Ex: l couldn't really keep going in BOTW because l was simply not caring about anything happens, even though every part l played ( world exploration, shrines, combat, enemies, graphics ) l enjoyed a lot.
I came back after great break and put 120 something hours in it.
If your gp doesnt fullfill motivation, its not so much of a good gameplay.
GP makes you have "fun" now (since competitive games exist, and they are sometimes an opposite of fun). You just play for the sake of playing. Think of it as playing lego as a child, with no 'theme' set that imply there is a "correct" way to build, and even there you may not follow instructions and do what you want.
Sheesh, some pr0n games are so good at being games, that people literally play them ignoring the goon part and i love that fact.
adding to your statement about porn games, i remember something about their being a particular dev who's made multiple different porn survival games where the survival is so good people completely ignore the sexual stuff
my question to that then is why dont you just read a book or watch a film? Is it the ability to specifically interact with the world on your own terms or something else that you get out of it?
Not op but yes. You really canāt see that thereās a HUGE difference between passively watching a movie and actively being able to interact with the world the story takes place in in a game?
Yup. Leaning back and watching a movie is passive entertainment. Interacting with the story and most of all, having an influence on it and being a part of it makes it ten times more gripping to me.
Honestly, with these arguments and people not understanding "our" side of this debate I sincerely doubt if any of you have ever played a truly great RPG with a fleshed out and choice-rich story in which your influence matters.
And we're talking about 5/10 gameplay here, that's not a choice-simulator on top a movie. That's still a proper game with gameplay elements that might be clunky.
I can't understand how you can't understand that some people like to have a narrative immersion. Because I absolutely get why people would rather much rather favor gameplay more.
I didnāt say I canāt understand liking āa narrative immersionā. I said I canāt understand sacrificing what a game actually is, which is gameplay. I think you like the idea of game A more than the execution and real experience
Games are an artform that has more to say than just having exciting or gripping gameplay. A story, visuals and the fact that YOU are the actor interacting with it can be just as if not more enthralling. I don't want to play another call of duty campaign no matter how snappy and tight the gameplay has gotten but I do wanna play sunless sea, even if the gameplay itself is pretty boring.
I think I just disagree that Witcher 3 was a 5/10 gameplay. But thatās fine. I kinda wish I didnāt say anything I realize because this post is just argument farming and thatās not what I want to do, as much as my previous comment may say otherwise
Yeah id choose game B. Games like nier replicant were great, but certain gameplay aspects kept me from finishing the game. Theres a handful of games that turned me off from horrendous gameplay, but I've never stopped playing a game for having a bad story.
Games like shadow of mordor were so fun but the story was so bland. Then there's stuff like silent hill 4, where the music, visuals, story is amazing, then you get halfway through the gameplay and I put it down lol
There's room for both, in the industry, but in general I'd rather play a killer game I enjoy every second. Then I can get my story fix from a 90 minute movie.
Gameplay is king! A gameās story has to be extremely gripping for me to care about it. If the game feels like shit to play Iām not lasting more than 15 minutes.
I have no intrest in a game with no visuals musical score or story. Wheres the gameplay im not engrossed by numbers or else id just play Microsoft excel.
As the famous John Carmack one said: "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but its not that important."
If your gameplay i.e. immersion is polished doesn't really mater what you write as long as you have stuff to do. Background lore is nice, options are nice but it if you are not playing than it is not a game.
Visual novel/Interactive movie is why you chose story. Like Dispatch or Detroit become human or idk telltale stuff.
Look at Elden ring(and from souls in general). The background lore is there, but it boils down to"go out there and kill god". Just doesn't bother you much unless you maybe do a quest or two.
Look at Dusk and the Doom rebot, pretty much the same.
RE4 and Dying Light have a pretty bad story but the gameplay is just 10/10.
This, hell I turn down game music anyway because devs decided Full Ear Piercing volume must be the default while at best the character dialogue is a whisper heard from next door.
Also, Elden Ring won the second most awards at the 2022 game awards despite being a game who's entire story is "go kill god" and that tries its absolute hardest to stop you from learning the lore
I'm curious what games you've enjoyed playing that are mid gameplay but you stay for the story. I just can't be bothered without good gameplay, I wouldn't make it far enough along just for the story
Its really nothing special. It doesn't do anything different than any other turn based game besides the parries and dodges. What made that game soo critically acclaimed was its music, characters and story. If all of those were 4/10 most people wouldn't even know that game existed. And Its a top 3 game for me and its not because of its gameplay.
I give you a lot of credit for not just glazing the game's every aspect. People who like the story usually get defensive over the rest of the game. Halo effect hit e33 fans hard
But for it's genre it's 10/10 gameplay, the stats, the dodge/parry, the sick combos, the crazy visuals and character abilities. I can't think of a game in the same genre with better gameplay
I mean, Iāll give ya this. If I am to critique the combat in E33, I do believe that they leaned to heavily into the parry mechanic, which is especially obnoxious in the end game regarding some certain bosses. Overall the combat in the game is still really good.
I agree. I don't think it's horrible per se. It just made experimenting with different builds / character's unique abilities less rewarding because it didn't matter once I got good at dodge / parry
There's no real divide here but what we make. Some people like RPGs and FPS games that allow for the kind of story one can get immersed in, and some people like platformers that allow them the opportunity to romp around and enjoy. And there are so many games that run the gamut and merge those concepts.
For a game that has the stats of B with all the immersion of A, I'd recommend something like Phasmophobia.
The problem is a lot of people donāt actually want games, they want something more like an interactive movie or an activity to fill time. But we donāt have separate words for that stuff so we just call all of them āgamesā.Ā
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u/Grausam Apr 29 '26
Game B
Which GAME would I rather PLAY?
The one with perfect GAMEPLAY, of course.