+1 for "it depends"

• If I want to mindlessly slaughter wave after wave of enemies, then a story isn't necessary.
• If I want to immerse myself in a world and be enriched by my experiences within that world, I'll be expecting a good story.

I might want either type of game depending on what mood I'm in.

Story can be a good way to give the player a reason for doing what they're doing. Especially when what they're doing is kinda repetitive. For example in an RTS, given two levels with the same units and same opponents but with different parts in the story, as a player I might feel as though I have a new motivation for completing a level and not immediately recognize that the developer has actually done a minimal amount of work.

I always enjoyed GTA's stories and characters. They're really well done, like, every single one of them.

If GTA didn't had that it would be a pretty crappy sandbox IMO.

I personally prefer games without story, because if there is a story i will simply want to complete it as quickly as possible, since i see completion of the story as the goal. Although the story might be enjoyable and make the game last longer, it tends to feel like a grind of sorts too, taking so long to complete.

Maybe it would help if i didnt have such an important role in the story, such that my own actions dont drive the story but merely direct it or similiar.

Also story based games seem limited to me, while more sandbox/pure gameplay ones usually are somewhat neverending. So id rather play a game where the focus is on the non-story part.

That'd be interesting, a game where there is a proper story which you are part of, but you really don't have much impact how it turns out. You're a general who wins all his battles but you still lose the war, etc - like real life in other words!

I personally prefer games without story, because if there is a story i will simply want to complete it as quickly as possible, since i see completion of the story as the goal. Although the story might be enjoyable and make the game last longer, it tends to feel like a grind of sorts too, taking so long to complete.

Maybe it would help if i didnt have such an important role in the story, such that my own actions dont drive the story but merely direct it or similiar.

Also story based games seem limited to me, while more sandbox/pure gameplay ones usually are somewhat neverending. So id rather play a game where the focus is on the non-story part.

That'd be interesting, a game where there is a proper story which you are part of, but you really don't have much impact how it turns out. You're a general who wins all his battles but you still lose the war, etc - like real life in other words!

The "Silent Hunter" series' career mode worked a little bit like this. In SH3 for instance you played as the Germans. No matter how many ships you sank, WWII would still end with a victory for the Allies.

Nope. Chess has no story, uno has no story. Perhaps in story games stories are important, and should be expected, but games don't have to have a story.

Your poll says: (in my interpretation)

• Yes, 100% important.
• No, I don't care.
• No, I ignore them.
• No, I hate them.

That's rather slanted towards the answer you are probably wanting to hear.

Story does matters to me, but not is not "critical". So I can't vote "Critical", and I can't vote, "I don't care".

World matters alot more to me than story does, but story is important too (because story reinforces the world, and I care immensely about game worlds - not just the level design, but the background lore and more importantly (to me), the atmosphere). However, this entirely depends on the game. Tetris doesn't require a story. Halo does.

Halo without the story would be alot less interesting to me.

So, in answer to your question, "Is story important in games?", the answer is a clear:

1. Yes, story is important.
2. For some games, it's less important.
3. For other games, it's entirely not important.
4. For still other games, it's a hinderance.
5. For some players, it's less important.
6. For other players, it's entirely not important.
7. For still other players, it's a hinderance.

Are you making a game (the majority) where story is important or at least partially important? Are you targeting players (the majority) to whom story is important or at least partially important?

Not every player is fanatical about story (I'm not), but most players probably at least expect and enjoy a good story.

But if a developer is just going to slap in a crummy story, just to have "something", that might be worse than nothing, depending on how it turns out and depending on the genre of the game.

Let me flip the question on you: Is music important in games?

A game does not require a story, but yes, stories are a very important part of (most) games.

A game is not just (Music + Gameplay + Art + Story). The story influences the whole, the music influences the whole, the art influences the whole, the gameplay influences the whole. Games are more than the sum of their parts.

That said, some games lean more towards art than gameplay, some lean more towards story than gameplay, some lean more towards gameplay than story, some lean more towards music and art than story.

For FPSes, because FPSes often have a bit of focus on the environment (world), because it's first-person, story helps color the environment.

For RTSes, because they are more decision-focused, stories (to me!) aren't as important in that genre.

If you're having trouble coming up with a story, ask yourself these questions:

1. Would your game benefit from having a story?
2. What kind of story would most compliment your gameplay?
3. What limitations does your budget/gameplay/art put on your story?
4. How can you work within those limitations to convey a story?

Story doesn't have to be delivered through cut-scenes. It can be entirely non-verbally delivered through graffiti sprayed on the wall, for example. Or a single-sentence displayed on-screen the beginning of every level.

It can be a simple story without being a poorly done story. Complexity does not equal good writing. Lord of the Rings: There is a evil wizard who is raising up an army to take over the world. He's trying to get the Ring of Power that the weak hero has. The weak hero has to destroy the ring of power by bringing it to the location the evil wizard happens to be sitting ontop of. There's substories occurring at the same time, focusing on different locations (Gonder) and people (the other hobbits, Aragorn, etc...), but the main story is what I mentioned.

The core of most good stories are human-focused. Human to human interaction. Human to environment interaction. Human self-interaction. Human growth. Human exploration. Character development. Redemption, destruction, drama, slaying personal giants, being defeated by giants, being saved by an enemy, being backstabbed by a friend. Need some dramatic situations to get those creative juices flowing?

One key to some types of story-writing is asking and answering questions. You ask the player/reader a question ("Who are these shadowy sub-human horsemen trying to stop Frodo and steal the ring?"), and you answer it ("The ring-wraiths are 9 human kings who were given rings of power by Sauron, that Sauron tricked and now controls, and who are twisted by darkness and willingly enslaved."). Then you ask another question, and later answer it. Layer multiple questions together, so while there are one or two big long-term questions, there is also a continual asking and revealing of smaller short-term questions. Curiosity.

Another key to driving stories forward is continual conflict. Trying to rush to acquire X before the <bad guy>, trying to rush to stop <bad guy> from doing Y, fleeing from <person A>, chasing <person B>, fighting <person C>, and so on. Action, tension, and conflict. Doesn't always have to be physical, but there does need to be the possibility of the good guys losing conflicts here and there, creating more tension for the next conflict.

In a different thread, I mentioned Story Spines, and I think it may help you here as well. Story Spines help a little when you can't think up a story, but they also help when you already have ideas and just need a structured way of viewing them to analyze your existing story from another angle.

"Is story-telling important, or do you just want to skip to the game?"

According to wiktionary, a story is "a sequence of real or fictional events; or, an account of such a sequence".

In a game the evens are generated by the players actions and the rules of the game, and in one sense, story-telling is just the presentation or rendering of those events to the player. Chess definitely has a story (i.e. the abstract battle between two armies), and even Soduku (i.e. the player as an explorer in the world of latin squares).

But I think you are using the word in a more narrow sense, meaning some kind of theatrical backdrop to the game. In that case, I would say that it is critical that it resonates with the game itself.

Obviously, it depends on the genre of the game. A game like Tetris doesn't need stories. As a matter of fact, I find it quite annoying if they tried to fit in a story into a puzzle game that obviously no need of a story. Bejeweled need no stories, but if they started with lame background story like some princess-was-kidnapped-and-we-need-to-gather-some-jewels crap, then stories may, IMO, degrade the experience of the game.

Having said that, some games use stories to create alternate or multiple endings -- imposing moral choices to the players. Back a decade ago, this would have impacted me. I really took these choices personally. What would I have done if I had been in a similar situation? These moral choices would matter to me and I saw them as reflections of my personality and moral standings. Nowadays, I don't care because I know it's just a game. I would actually choose the opposite of my moral standing just to see what the game has to offer for choosing the forsaken path. In Mass Effect, for example, I chose to be as much of a dick as possible. I didn't get to beat the game to enjoy the outcome of my misguided choices, but it certainly annoyed my friends.

So, I ignore stories. I don't care who's missing, or whom we are looking for, or what the goal was. I skip cutscenes (unless they are pretty). Even if I had watched and listened to the entire story, I wouldn't develop the emotional connection to it, a.k.a I didn't care.

Let me flip the question on you: Is music important in games?

Nope, I always turn it off immediately :)

Let me flip the question on you: Is music important in games?

Nope, I always turn it off immediately

So, because you happen to not care that much about music, do you think your customers would be annoyed if you shipped a game (like a FPS) without sound?

Sound is more than just a set of drumbeats - background music sets the mood (strengthening the atmosphere), ambient noise enhances the world (strengthening immersion), your footsteps convey game information (what material you're standing on), enemy footsteps convey game information (the approximate nearness and direction of enemies and allies), enemy gunshots convey game information (danger), your gunshots reinforce cause-and-effect (combined with gun kickback and muzzle flash, gunshot noises help remind and strengthen the idea that your actions affect the world. It reinforces the feeling that you have power-to-influence your surrounding).

The different parts of a game strengthen and reinforce each-other; they aren't (unless done badly by the developer) isolated from each other. Depending on the nature of the game, the strengthening from one part (sound or story or graphics) may not be as necessary as in another game, but that doesn't mean story (or sound) isn't important, in general, to the majority of games.