Gameplay or Immersion?

[Xaos]

Not sure where to put this, hope it suffices !

For online games, which do you prefer ? The immersion of the game (anywhere from graphics, logos, images, presentation, etc.) or gameplay? IE would you take a really fun text based game over an average game with good graphics and presentation in a browser game?

[Sharlenwar]

Not sure I understand what you are asking. To me good gameplay helps with immersion. While immersion itself would be why you would want people to play your game. I see immersion as a good storyline, how well does the game interact with the player, how well does the game hang on to their player so that they get played. But I would say that gameplay is important so that people will be able to play your game, to be immersed into the world that you may have created for them.

Just my $0.01.

[Jackolantern]

Yeah, I can't really see them as being opposed either. You can of course have good gameplay without immersion, since many games do not have immersion as a goal (such as Angry Birds, or other smaller or casual games). However, in most games good immersion requires good gameplay, because nothing can take you out of the game world faster than realizing the controls are bad, or that you are having to jump through too many artificial-feeling hoops to get something done.

[Sharlenwar]

True. Depends on what you want to do with the game.

[Xaos]

Alright, I guess I wasn't specific enough, but those were good answers. I mean like, would you prefer a game to be really fun wehn you're actually playing/ have bad graphics, storyline, characters, or not be that actually fun when you're playing but have outstanding graphics, storyline, characters, etc.

[Chris]

I find, that I personally have a tendency to look at the graphics and overall visual design of a game before I play it. If it seems decent enough, I'll play it. Once I've gotten into a game however I couldn't care less what it looks like, as long as it plays the way I expect it and I get pleasure out of it.

[Jackolantern]

Definitely good gameplay. Of course, for me story and characters can be part of the gameplay if it is an RPG or other highly-story based type of game, because that is part of what makes it fun and drives the game forward. But for other types of games, like shooters and others, gameplay trumps graphics and story any day for me.

Although I do agree with where Chris is coming from. It is kind of like being served a meal at a restaurant. They say people "eat with their eyes first, and then everything else". So good graphics and visual design can lure you in, but the gameplay has to be top-notch to keep you coming back. Back in the day, the graphics to the SNES game Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past were jaw-dropping since it came out in the first year of the system back in 1992. When I saw the commercials, that made me want to play it. But the gameplay is what made me pick it back up the other day for a play through again, 20 years later, when the graphics are considered retro and nowhere near the current standard.

[Xaos]

Gotcha. Thanks guys, gonna help me alot when I start making more complex things and even when I make my first few games

[mattykins]

IMO Its more of a balance. A game that has amazing gameplay but does not suck me in somehow with some element of the game won't hold my attention for all that long. Look at call of duty for instance, I am an avid player of call of duty and i get 'immersed' into it because of all the different ways to play, getting together with a group of friends and playing for hours. And the campaign for most CoD games are rather outstanding as well, so that game tends to bring me in. Even moreso than call of duty games, RPGs tend to draw me in for 100s of hours. I have easily put more than 1000 hours into the elder scrolls 3: Morrowind, I think that game has a phenomenal story, great gameplay, and the community for it is so awesome it is easy to get lost in the amount of mods.

But a game without a great community, great story, great graphics, or anything like that but with still great gameplay won't hold me for too long. Or vice versa, if I feel the game has great immersion, and sucks me in with its storyline or graphics, I will get sucked right back out when i feel the gameplay has become rather dull and grey.

Its hard to explain but I feel the game needs a balance of both immersion, and gameplay.

[Callan S.]

I think the two are in conflict with each other. Basically one always has to come ahead of the other, otherwise they are both compromised to the point of suckitude. Ie, the play to win gamism is blunted down so as to be realistic, while the realism/immersion is broken so as to fit in like an actual game instead of just a world emulation. If you think of it as a slider, one end of the slider being gameplay/play to win and the other end of the slider being immersion, you decide where you want the slider (tetris, seduku, etc are examples of the slider being hard at the gameplay end, because they are so abstract in their content). But trying to put it in the middle wont work out, IMO. People tend to be play to win or immersionist, people don't tend to be middle of the road (because the middle of the road isn't as satisfying).

Sadly I think most of the market are immersionist, in terms of games that flatter their sense of being a big damn hero. Like how people read harry potter or twilight, because the hero/heroine is so empty of persona they start reading the hero/heroine as having their own motivations and feelings. Same with games. And yeah, I'm pretty down on that.

note: just to define immersion a bit further (what I mean when I refer to it), it doesn't mean playing the game alot. Someone who plays chess alot is not, IMO, playing an immersion game.