Is Story more important then Gameplay?

[bojackx]

Anyone who says story is more important than gameplay in a game is wrong. Even if it's just in their opinion, their opinion is wrong.

Pretty much any FPS launched nowadays has a multiplayer with no story behind it, and they seem to do pretty well (hell, to say Call of Duty's multiplayer is popular is a huge understatement). However, no-one is going to subject themselves to hours of gameplay they don't enjoy just because they have an appreciation for the story. The gameplay must be at least tolerable or you're not going to play it, no matter how magical the story is.

 

[Pulse]

If my actions don't affect the story, then all it is is background noise to me really and a lot of the time I couldn't care less. Why should I really care about what essentially amounts to a dumb movie plot which doesn't affect me apart from taking away my playing time?

If my actions do affect a GOOD story (or even, the story affects what I choose to do next), then I will put up with gameplay I otherwise may not have, but only so far. I got pretty invested in mass effect and fallout.

Essentially I only care about the story if it's an action RPG, the only other game to break through was Red dead redemption (which also had good if not great gameplay).

 

[Maze1125]

Anyone who says story is more important than gameplay in a game is wrong. Even if it's just in their opinion, their opinion is wrong.

Pretty much any FPS launched nowadays has a multiplayer with no story behind it, and they seem to do pretty well (hell, to say Call of Duty's multiplayer is popular is a huge understatement). However, no-one is going to subject themselves to hours of gameplay they don't enjoy just because they have an appreciation for the story. The gameplay must be at least tolerable or you're not going to play it, no matter how magical the story is.

There's a big distinction between bad gameplay and lacking gameplay.
I wouldn't play a game with a good story but bad gameplay, but I would play a game with a good story and minimal gameplay.
Equally, I wouldn't play a game with good gameplay but a bad story, but I would play a game with good gameplay and near no story at all.

A bad story is just as annoying to me as bad gameplay. You personally may find bad gameplay to be more intolerable than a bad story, but another person may find the exact opposite to be true. Those are just your opinions and your opinion is not more right than anyone else's.

 

[GameChanger]

It's about both and how well they work together.

I wouldn't want to play Dark Souls if either the gameplay or the story changed.
The same goes for the Myst series, or heck, even Minecraft.

Gaming is a young medium, like film once was. When it matures people will start to learn how the medium is different from others and learn how things work.

If anything, film is a combination between written literature, theatre, sound and the visual aspect. Film has spent quite a while figuring out how those work together, and the same will go for games.

 

[bojackx]

Anyone who says story is more important than gameplay in a game is wrong. Even if it's just in their opinion, their opinion is wrong.

Pretty much any FPS launched nowadays has a multiplayer with no story behind it, and they seem to do pretty well (hell, to say Call of Duty's multiplayer is popular is a huge understatement). However, no-one is going to subject themselves to hours of gameplay they don't enjoy just because they have an appreciation for the story. The gameplay must be at least tolerable or you're not going to play it, no matter how magical the story is.

There's a big distinction between bad gameplay and lacking gameplay.
I wouldn't play a game with a good story but bad gameplay, but I would play a game with a good story and minimal gameplay.
Equally, I wouldn't play a game with good gameplay but a bad story, but I would play a game with good gameplay and near no story at all.

A bad story is just as annoying to me as bad gameplay. You personally may find bad gameplay to be more intolerable than a bad story, but another person may find the exact opposite to be true. Those are just your opinions and your opinion is not more right than anyone else's.

You wouldn't play a game with good gameplay but a bad story? Seems kind of odd, seeing as how almost all games will have you actually gaming 95% of the time anyway, what would a bad story detract from that? You can just ignore it. Bad gameplay is much less tolerable because it actually requires you to input effort and work, and why would you put yourself through something you don't enjoy if there's the much easier alternative of watching all the cutscenes on Youtube or reading the story online?

Oh, and the whole part about people's opinions being wrong was just me exaggerating, I know that opinions themselves cannot be right or wrong.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yes to a certain extent but not every single games need a story since where do puzzle games like Tetris and Lumines need story in it?

 

[rasputin0009]

Gaming is a young medium, like film once was. When it matures people will start to learn how the medium is different from others and learn how things work.

If anything, film is a combination between written literature, theatre, sound and the visual aspect. Film has spent quite a while figuring out how those work together, and the same will go for games.

I like your optimism. Gaming is still a new art medium and I'm sure film was criticized for not being art in it's early days, too. I think we can expect better stories as the industry attracts new talent. And it needs individuals outside of the industry with a lot of money willing to back up ambitious game projects. Say, a big wig at Disney decides that the next Star Wars game is going to be as big as the upcoming movie trilogy.

 

[Reven]

I'm pretty sure the fact that here are so many threads and arguments over this topic clearly demonstrate that gameplay is not "undisputed" arguments are in fact DISPUTES , and i seem to recall the walking dead having very little true gameplay and yet it made alot of best game of the year lists. Of course all this is opinion, and gameplay is by far and away not even close to being the undisputed number 1.

It can be disputed perhaps, but it would be wrong. Gameplay is number one way out ahead all by itself, standing supreme. A game with shitty gameplay will fail and no one will buy or play it. A game with no gameplay isn't a game; if it has graphics and no gameplay, it's called a movie. If it doesn't have graphics, it's called a book.

You can have a story and no game and call it "Dear Esther" or "Heavy Rain" and it might sell a few copies. Or you can make Minecraft, World of Warcraft, any Bethesda game with little or only token story and make millions on a game millions will play. This isn't opinion, it's the very basis of games design, the core principle, the fundamental rule, the first thing they'll teach you on a game design course.

You can have a different opinion and say story is more important than gameplay, but you would be wrong, objectively and subjectively wrong. Someone needs to want to play a game, be engaged in it and, if the developer has done their job right, have fun playing it.

I agree someone needs to be engaged in the game, hence why claiming that i am objectively wrong and subjectively wrong is a false statement. The reason? People have different ways that they get engaged in games... Yest many achieve this through the gameplay, but plenty of people only feel engaged in a game with a good story, and even ignore bad gameplay as a result. This is not a subjective claim, it is an objective fact that some people do prefer a game with bad gameplay and good story.

Your claim that I am wrong simply boils down to "you don't agree with what I think therefore you are wrong"

with regards to the WoW claim, guess what, it does have a story, and Quite a few players (particularly those that played warcraft) actually enjoy and care about the story.

With regards to heavy rain and TWD, you claim heavy rain has no gameplay but the walking dead does, honestly the distinction between the two is pretty narrow, both rely HEAVILY on the story, and for many many people, the reason TWD is so highly regarded is for its STORY not it's gameplay, which extremely simple (to the point that some argue it is non-existent) This demonstrates that your bias is completely clouding your judgment on the subject, I recommend you take a step back and realize that not everyone agrees with you that good gameplay is the only factor that allows someone to become engaged.

 

[pyramid head grape]

It's normally all about the type of game, but I Prefer games the find a balance between to the gameplay that complements story and/or storytelling. Silent Hill games giving me the easiest example of this; terrible controls to enforce the weakness of the characters themselves.