Silicon Knights President: "Gameplay Isn't Everything"

[Jonny49]

What are you doing man?! Make Eternal Darkness 2 for fucks sake!

 

[AncientYoungSon]

I think Dyack has his heart in the right place, but I think it's a marriage of excellent gameplay and compelling story that make a game truly magnificent.

Just look at Deus Ex.

 

[theultimateend]

Gameplay is absolutely the most important thing in the gaming world.

This is why I'm playing Playstation One Games on a Modded PSP instead of all the latest bullshit.

They look like crap, they sound like crap, sometimes the story is terrible, but the gameplay is so spot on almost every goddamn time that I'm left being extremely pleased.

You can polish a turd, indeed it'll be a pretty shiny turd...but it is still a goddamn turd.

This, except I thought Spyro the Dragon was a damn good release.
For the PSOne, that is.

I loved Spyro . I should play it again sometime.

It certainly isn't everything about a game. There's still graphics, story, character development, etc. etc. but gameplay is still a fairly large part to a game. A game with amazing graphics, story, and character development, and voice acting with no gameplay is just a movie.

Yeah I was going to say that a game without gameplay is not a game.

Basically other things are nice, but you can have a game without any of them.

You can have a good game with (A) no story, a good game with (B) no character development, and a good game without (C) graphics.

A - Tetris
B - Most fighting Games or almost any old game (Mario didn't exactly develop)
C - Almost any old game. Sure at the time they were 'pretty' but now they look like shit but I'll still take most of them over modern crap anyday.

But you cannot have a good game without gameplay. That's why it is on a field all its own.

 

[KaiRai]

Gameplay is not important? In a game?

THE FUCK!? This confuses me, LOTS

surely screenplay is not important in films then? Aaaand that's what I thought..... Of course it's not a popular viewpoint, I buy a game to PLAY. I don't buy a game to watch, I have films for that. They're purpose made. I don't shit in my washing machine do I? No!! Same kind of concept, purpose made!

 

[wewontdie11]

Considering Silicon Knights' last game, Too Human, looked like a PS2 game graphically, and had some of the most repetitive gameplay ever, methinks this guy has no clue what the hell he's talking about.

 

[romitelli]

Gameplay isn't every thing, it's the ONLY thing.

That's what the people behind 'Wii Pong' were thinking.

 

[The Random One]

I've said this on several threads, and I have to keep repeating myself.

Play NetHack. Gameplay is all it's got. Then, come back to me and tell me it isn't everything.

 

[Georgeman]

Ahem... It is indeed true that in some games like say, Silent Hill 2, the gameplay might not be that great but the rest of the game's factors (backgrounds, audio, atmosphere, story, characters) can make a hell of game. I disagree on the whole "industry film techniques". Crap like black borders and film grain (I always disable it on Silent Hill games) needs to disappear from games. Games are games. They have their own ways of becoming engaging without resorting to borrowing stuff from a different medium. If games want to remain unique they mustn't be associated with films. My two cents reallly.

 

[BGH122]

Oh I see. So the reason that Too Human has got a Metacritic score of 65/100 isn't that it's a mind-numbingly mediocre game, it's because you're an under-appreciated artistic genius, a modern day Van Gough, if you will. Damn, if only all of society could see your burgeoning genius and understand that their clear inferiority to you is the reason that they don't 'get' Too Human. Perhaps some day in the distant future copies of Too Human will be auctioned for millions, as the providence of a being of staggering intellectual might, the first man to notice that it's not the job of the entertainment industry to entertain. The entertainment industry should, instead, focus on creating deep and meaningful artistic productions which pull at the heart strings even at the cost of entertainment.

Or perhaps the only other person who thinks similar thoughts to you is Peter Molyneux, a man more famed for disappointment and lying than superior games.

 

[teutonicman]

Yes it is damn it, if I want poor gameplay make me a movie.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

It's worth remembering that gameplay is needed to make it immersive and/or fun while you play. Otherwise not even the most epic story can keep you going.

 

[boholikeu]

It's worth remembering that gameplay is needed to make it immersive and/or fun while you play.

This just simply isn't true. If you need proof look at grinding in MMOs. Nobody likes it, and yet people will do it for hours just to get a rare mount/set of armor.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

It's worth remembering that gameplay is needed to make it immersive and/or fun while you play.

This just simply isn't true. If you need proof look at grinding in MMOs. Nobody likes it, and yet people will do it for hours just to get a rare mount/set of armor.

That feels more like a job than a game. I wouldn't say that is a fun game. It just breeds an addiction and need to try to reach a cheap trophy of confirmation. Don't get me wrong, I've wasted some time in my life playing in an MMO, and while there were some fun moments with my friends, it just felt like a boring obligation in the end, that I had to play it just to make some use out of the months of game play I bought. Everyone has their reasons, but to make a good game, good game play is needed, thus the term "game play".

 

[boholikeu]

It's worth remembering that gameplay is needed to make it immersive and/or fun while you play.

This just simply isn't true. If you need proof look at grinding in MMOs. Nobody likes it, and yet people will do it for hours just to get a rare mount/set of armor.

That feels more like a job than a game. I wouldn't say that is a fun game. It just breeds an addiction and need to try to reach a cheap trophy of confirmation. Don't get me wrong, I've wasted some time in my life playing in an MMO, and while there were some fun moments with my friends, it just felt like a boring obligation in the end, that I had to play it just to make some use out of the months of game play I bought. Everyone has their reasons, but to make a good game, good game play is needed, thus the term "game play".

Actually I pretty much agree with you. I just wanted to point out that the argument that "games need to be fun in order to keep people playing" is false.

"Bad" game play can still be effective in certain situations though. You just need to be really careful about how you use it, and you need to make sure it supports your story/the rest of the game. If done right it can really help make your game deeper and more enjoyable.

 

[Jennacide]

These two people get it. The rest of you are complaining about something he never even said.

He does say that he believes gameplay isn't the most important aspect to games, which is where I vehemently disagree with him. I also think that doing the stories the movie way is exactly one of the things that's wrong with a good share of games today.

You're missing the point. What he's saying is "Yes, it's important. Is it the MOST? No." Everything factors in. Plenty of games have had fine gameplay, but been terrible cause everything else failed. Or in the reverse. An example of the reverse is Silent Hill 2. Gameplay is GOD. AWFUL. Controls like a brick, combat is horrible, etc. But the story, art direction, and overall atmosphere make it one of the most heralded games of the PS2.

That's what he's trying to convey. And he's right. If you can suceed in most of the categories without being an epic failure in one, the game can still be good.

 

[TotallyFake]

Wrong!! Game play is everything. I couldn't play a game that you did almost nothing but look like real life. This quote is fail.....Maybe even epic?

Dear god man think for yourself rather than just regurgitating the same one line that people have been spewing out for this entire thread. And the fact that you said epic fail immediately disinclines me to consider your argument worth a damn.

Yes, a game in which you can do nothing but looks like real life would be dull. Because nothing happens. There is more to a game than the graphics as well. There's the plot, the characters, the script, the presentation etc.

Using the god old poster boys of "Artsy Games":
Planescape:Torment : Has atrocious gameplay. The combat is repetitive, the interface clunky, strategy is nil. Yet it's a fantastic game. Because of the story, because of the characters, because it's got better writing than any game I've ever seen.
Fahrenheit : Yes, you can debate all you want about how the story shits itself inside out near the end, but the first half is undeniably excellent. Yet how is this, when the gameplay is so simplistic. You should be able to guess by now: The characters, the plot, the quality of the voice acting.
No More Heroes/Killer7 : Again, simple (albeit visceral) combat system. Poor graphics, lack of depth to the world. But good games, thanks to the humour, the characters, the biting satire.
Psychonauts : The platforming is competent at best, falling way below that at certain points. But what gets praised? The art style, the wacky characters.

Moving further away:
Mass Effect/Fallout3 : Combat lacks the depth of either a fullblown shooter or an RPG. Loot systems are simplified compared to traditional RPGs. Yet these games got fantastic reviews. Because of the characters, the world they made, the environment. And the fact that Mass Effect is hard sci-fi on a level that would make Asimov proud.
Bioshock: How many people do you hear praising the "innovative combat" "revolutionary plasmid system"? My guess is none, the game doesn't have them. What is it that people are praising? The art style, the depth to rapture, the mindbending Randian philosophy and dissection of free will.
Morrowind : I fall firmly on the side of Morrowind > Oblivion. Yet the combat is better in Oblivion, graphics too. So why do I prefer Morrowind? Because the world is more interesting, the architecture varied. It's not just a cut and paste generic fantasy.

CoD4: Yes, the gameplay was excellent, but if that's all it had it would just be discarded as a generic (if highly polished) shooter. What makes it so great is the characters and the situations. At the nuke scene (assuming you've played it) how did you feel? Emotional at all? Involved in the situation? Or did you just try and skip it so you could get back to shooting things?

Your argument of gameplay is everything is so wrong it's hilarious. Yes, you can make games entirely built around gameplay (Ninja Gaiden, DMC) entirely without (Planescape) or some mixture of the two (CoD, MGS(although I for one don't care for the gameplay) or Half-Life)

 

[LeWiggster]

I think it's fair to say that while gameplay is important, depending on the genre the importance of gameplay against the importance of story or artistic direction can vary. In a JRPG, gameplay usually takes the back burner while story takes its place, and while this appeals to some people it could turn off others. The fact is that different people like different styles of games, and if you cram everyone into one corner then you're not going to please everyone.