Aside from Gameplay, what's the second most important part of a game?

[Hero of Lime]

I certainly agree gameplay is the most important, primarily since if everything but the gameplay is good, I would still consider it a bad game.

Anyway, I would go with art direction/aesthetics. Something that can truly make a game shine even if its story may not be that great.

Control and great game feel are also extremely important for me. If the game plays well and feels good, that goes a long way towards making it great.

All that being said, I think a great game needs several things going for it to be great. If the gameplay, visuals, controls, and story mesh well together, it's an unbeatable combo.

 

[FillerDmon]

Neronium pretty much said what I was gonna say...

There are a lot of factors that help make a game good at what it is and what it does. And there are several games where, due to lacking in one or more areas, fall short of the goal they set out for.

But without everything that individual game needs to succeed, a good soundtrack, good aestetics, good graphics, good story, good pacing, good this, good that. It needs to have everything it needs in the right balance for its own needs, is what I hope I'm trying to get out. Everything needs to be perfect for that one game.

A better question to pose might be "After Gameplay, what most impresses you in a game?". That'd make for a good poll, actually:
-Good Story
-Good Aestetic
-Good Graphics
-Good Soundtrack
-Nothing, just Gameplay
-Other Options as needed, depeinding on how broad your definitions are (pacing I'd potentially file with story, art direction under aestetics, framrate under graphics, and so on).

And I would answer that probably with Soundtrack. Sometimes the sound of what's going on outlives everything else I remember about a game, or helps invoke feelings in me that even the game itself can't do. And that goes with other media, too: Attack on Titan wouldn't have been half as interesting as it was if it wasn't for the OST that made me be able to outlift my own weight records because of how emotional they got me.

 

[veloper]

Another vote for atmosphere, right after gameplay.

When the gameplay is merely passable and the plot invariably stinks, a good soundtrack and nice sound effects may carry the experience (as long as the dialogues aren't to laughably bad and the opponents don't look like a joke).

 

[Gankytim]

Atmosphere. Story can be done as poorly as it wants, but atmosphere is everything.

When you're in a horror game, what do you want to be feeling? Tension, fear, the promise that something bad could happen at any moment, you don't want to feel safe, maybe you're given a breather, but it wont last long.

When you're playing a hack n slash you want to feel powerful, you want to feel impressive, an artist on the battlefield.


Talk shit about S.T.A.L.K.E.R all you want, the game does one thing well that nobody can deny, atmosphere. You never feel truly safe wandering the zone.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

That's hard to say. It's difficult to put it into a cohesive list. As Neronium said, all elements of game design should be important. If any one of them is lacking then the whole game suffers for it. On the other hand it also depends on the type of game. For example a puzzle game probably doesn't really need much of a story, on the other hand a game like Skyrim does need a cohesive, in depth story. However all games do need good gameplay, well put together mechanics, a good visual asthetic. I count controls under gameplay.

 

[AmberSword]

I disagree with those saying no aspect of a game is more important than another, even gameplay.

Gameplay is what makes a game, the single aspect that differentiates games from any other form of media, meaning it is objectively crucial and most important for ANY game. If you can remove gameplay from the equation without ruining the experience, or even enhance the experience by doing so, then what you are dealing with is not, or should not be a game.

Also, when I say gameplay I mean it in a very broad sense. Innovation, solid mechanics, amount of bugs and all that.

Extremely well done gameplay can carry the weight of everything else sometimes, not for everyone though. There are also cases when gameplay and bare bones graphics are literally the only things present yet the game still manages to be fun.
(eg. Pong)

OT: To answer the question, I'll jump on the atmosphere bandwagon as well, at least for most games.

The game's ability to hold your willing suspension of disbelief is pretty important, and I don't just mean the story making sense. If you're supposed to be fighting for your life in a survival horror game, yet the game throws you all the supplies you would need for 2 playthroughs, or doesn't capture any sense of urgency or panic, well.. You can see what I'm getting at.

 

[DementedSheep]

I know this is a non answer but it depends on what I'm looking for at the time. Gameplay is usually the most important (it is what makes it a game after all) but there is a lot of competition so unless it's just so great nothing else really compares in quality or is unique in some way (for example I play mount and blade largely for the horse combat) it is going to need another draw.
Some games I play for story/world/characters which the cliché go to example for is bioware games. There are some that I don't care about the story at all but have a nice aesthetic. Alice: Madness returns never really grabbed me with the story, I played for gameplay and aesthetics. There are some games that just manage to pull off great atmosphere that sucks you in like Metro 2033, Amnesia and Dark Souls though atmosphere is a combination of a lot of things and influenced heavily by aesthetics and sound.

I'd say the one I can do without fairly easily is story especially if its story as in main plot not dialogue and characters (you can have awful main plot but still have a story carried by the characters and dialogue) but at the same time I will play a game for the story if it's good provided everything else isn't a complete mess.

I even have a few games which I have despite the gameplay not because of it. The bioshock series has only passable gameplay to me. The gameplay in the first was pushing my tolerance a bit. It feels slow and thuggish and I hate that however it has got atmosphere, aesthetics, sound and story (well, maybe not in BS2) going for it. Same thing with Mass Effect 1 and VTM:B. The gameplay is not good but I played them and enjoyed them anyway.

I suppose a game just needs to pull off something really well or just come together well. What that something is can change.

 

[RJ 17]

The title seems to imply that everyone considers gameplay to be at the top of the list of "most important part of a game". Personally I find a game's story to be much more important than gameplay.

 

[BrotherRool]

I think it's a flawed question. A game can be anything that you write code for and requires some form of interaction. That can serve to do any number of things for the people who play it, it can teach them something, it can stretch their brains, their reflexes, show them human situations, challenge their perspectives, relax them, entertain them.

And the most important part of a game is the part that meets those goals. Maybe with something like PixelJunk Eden where the aim is to relax, the combination of music and the visuals are the most important part of that game above anything else. For Matches and Matrimony, the most important part of the game is it's understanding of Pride and Prejudice.

And sometimes you get games that would be worsened by the removal of any one thing and it's not their qualities individually but the way they work together that's important. What would Journey be with any one part of it removed?

 

[lord.jeff]

People had already said it, there is no singularly important element to games as a whole some games try to make every element important some focus on story or atmosphere. The most important thing for a game to be is to accomplish what it wishes to accomplish.

 

[FPLOON]

Wait... There's a second most important part in a video game that's not gameplay?! I don't believe you! *runs away*

OT: But seriously, I would say "purpose"... Yes, gameplay better be the most important thing when it comes to a video game, but if there's no purpose for this suppose gameplay, then why would anyone playing the game in the first place?

Other than that... I got nothing... (Them ninjas, yo...)

 

[pearcinator]

For me, the second most important part is story.

It's what keeps the game going, without a story I get bored quickly because I feel as if there is no point to playing the game. Story also helps keep the game varied and interesting by introducing new ways to play and understand the game. Story can be presented in a number of ways (even a 'make your own story' way works) but there needs to be some sort of GOAL to achieve. At least, for me that is.

Graphics are important for building hype (the better the graphics the more hyped people would be about it) but word-of-mouth is also very effective (see: Minecraft).

 

[Nix33]

Games function best as a whole, so every part of it is integral in it functioning properly. Of course, this amounts to various different things when you look across the whole spectrum of genres. In terms of something like massively multi-player shooters, that would of course be primarily graphics, balance, and gun porn quality. There's really so many genres these days that it becomes increasingly more difficult to narrow down exactly what makes games good in general terms, or what is key to them being good. You could always use popular terms such as graphics, gameplay, and core mechanics to encompass all the possible answers, but that would probably make you go mad, especially since you'd spend roughly 50% of your earthly existence boiling games down to components that could fit into any of the above categories. I would just say that games should be judged individually, or comparatively within their own genre. That way, you get a much clearer and less general picture of what has been done well, and what hasn't.

For me, the second most important part is story.

It's what keeps the game going, without a story I get bored quickly because I feel as if there is no point to playing the game. Story also helps keep the game varied and interesting by introducing new ways to play and understand the game. Story can be presented in a number of ways (even a 'make your own story' way works) but there needs to be some sort of GOAL to achieve. At least, for me that is.

But what about games that don't really have a story as such? Say Terraria, or Minecraft? Games that simply throw you into a visually complete world but with little lore to tie it all together? There's no real story there. Or time-based platformers such as Dustforce?

 

[babinro]

1) Gameplay
2) Replay Value
3) Pacing

This is personal preference of course but it's also true. A game must have solid replay value for me to feel that I've got money's worth. Replay value can can in a few ways...
- New game plus
- Multiple Paths
- Multiple Dialogues
- Multiple Characters/Classes to experience
- Unlockables
- Skills to experiment with.
- Additively fun gameplay/experience (this would apply to games like Mario Bros, Tetris, etc)

 

[The Sanctifier]

I find replay value to be quite important. Apart from Amnesia Dark Descent I can't really think of too many games that I've enjoyed a lot which didn't have replay value. Though of course replay value may not always work out for every game, particularly puzzle games where the narrative is frequently involved with the gameplay, though sometimes these have multiple options which might encourage replaying.

 

[pearcinator]

For me, the second most important part is story.

It's what keeps the game going, without a story I get bored quickly because I feel as if there is no point to playing the game. Story also helps keep the game varied and interesting by introducing new ways to play and understand the game. Story can be presented in a number of ways (even a 'make your own story' way works) but there needs to be some sort of GOAL to achieve. At least, for me that is.

But what about games that don't really have a story as such? Say Terraria, or Minecraft? Games that simply throw you into a visually complete world but with little lore to tie it all together? There's no real story there. Or time-based platformers such as Dustforce?

I know what you mean but I think in games like Minecraft you make your own story or goals. You explore, find an interesting place and think 'what if there was a castle there?' and you craft your own stories around it. Or you could search for rare things like diamonds and emeralds. Also, I think Minecraft does have an 'end' so there is sort of a goal for it.

However, I cannot stand DayZ. To me that game is a waste of time. You go around looking for better guns and then when you get what you want, what do you do? Kill noobs for the lols? Eventually you will die and you'll have to start over again. Pointless game. I get no sense of accomplishment in that game which is why I find story important.

There needs to be some sort of goal for the player to reach and in most cases the plot of the game pulls you towards that goal.

 

[Riotguards]

graphics / gameplay

they're both equally important

you could have the most fanciest of graphic but poor gameplay

or you could have the greatest gameplay ever but the worst graphics ever (i'm looking at you every ps1 game's i revisit)