Gameplay all the way, I've never had an emotional response to a game and the phrase experience used to describe a game makes me cringe.

Argue properly Rouj!

Needs more spelling errors.

Both is cool if thats your thing but the gameplay has to be there surely? A game that plays bad is bad.

The title of the thread is Experience vs Gameplay.

retroking1981 wrote:

The title of the thread is Experience vs Gameplay.

Right?

Last Guardian says hello.

hylian_elf wrote:

retroking1981 wrote:

The title of the thread is Experience vs Gameplay.

Right?

Asking to pick one over the other?

The Last Of Us gameplay was average to poor but the experience was amazing. In that case i don't think they deliberately prioritised experience over gameplay it just happened. Journey was fantastic, loved it. I got bored of Virginia and Life is Strange, there wasn't enough game. 

'Experience' can mean lots of things. In Forza Horizon 3 (a game nobody would says is intended as an 'experience' game) there are moments on the mountain during a white out that genuinely feel like being on a mountain during a white out, can we class that as an experience? 

There doesn't always have to be an experience for me, i love Rocket League for example, but i think there always has to be some game. I think then for me there needs to be a balance between the two let's make up a number and say there has to be at least 20% skill based challenge or i lose interest.

Trying to define what a 'game' is is a headache that incredibly deifficult to solve because any definition that is vaguely useful will always exclude something that can be argued to be a game by someone else using a different definition. People still do it though, because people love classifying and structuring things, and those structure do have plenty of uses in acedmic circles for ensuring arguments are clear. As for a practical application to what we play and how we define things, I think it's a bankrupt avenue.

For me, anything that is interacted with is a worth experiencing or playing and i'll do my best to get around to everything and take it on its own merits without trying to fit it into some arbitrary structure, and that's as someone who loves both the aimless wandering of Proteus and the deep and mechanically focused Bayonetta.

retroking1981 wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

retroking1981 wrote:

The title of the thread is Experience vs Gameplay.

Right?

Asking to pick one over the other?

Ah ok.  Thread's not quite aimed at me then. I love both types.

Current example:
I'm playing Doom at the moment. I'm eager to get into the next level to see what happens. If it was just the same arena over and over, with more/harder enemies, I would have put it aside days ago.

Equally, Geometry Wars is extremely good, mechanically. As there's no content progression, I fire it up for a quick blast every couple of months and that's it.

AJ wrote:

Current example:
I'm playing Doom at the moment. I'm eager to get into the next level to see what happens. If it was just the same arena over and over, with more/harder enemies, I would have put it aside days ago.

Equally, Geometry Wars is extremely good, mechanically. As there's no content progression, I fire it up for a quick blast every couple of months and that's it.

The fact that you're still firing up GW says something.

Yossarian wrote:

AJ wrote:

retroking1981 wrote:

Both is cool if thats your thing but the gameplay has to be there surely? A game that plays bad is bad.

No. You could equally argue a game with no experience (as we're calling it) is bad. I, for instance, have zero interest in almost all games that are just a challenge with nothing more.

I'd say you're in a minority, and I can point to far more games which were massive hits with a challenge and nothing more (Doom, Bomberman, Worms, Street Fighter all spring to mind) than ones which were experiences with no gameplay.

Probably, but being a minority view doesn't make it invalid.

I do prefer there to be some gameplay with my experience, though. I've a handful of things I've not tried yet because I have been in the mood to just walk about. Journey got the balance good; there's skill to it if you want there to be, but the most cackhanded of people could easily finish it.

Djornson wrote:

AJ wrote:

I, for instance, have zero interest in almost all games that are just a challenge with nothing more.

AJ wrote:

Geometry Wars is extremely good, mechanically. As there's no content progression, I fire it up for a quick blast every couple of months and that's it.

Not quite zero interest then? 

As Tempy says, hard thing to discuss because there is no definition of what is experience and what is game. 

I, for instance, would argue DOOM is game only, there is no experience, no emotion, nothing to learn, just entertainment.

Note the almost. Unless it's going to do something new, I wouldn't even look at another twin stick shooter.

Doom is providing cool things to look at and, with its story, a semblance of intrigue.

Tempy is spot on, though; there's really nowhere for this conversion to go beyond defining terms and some people arguing something is pointless because they aren't interested in it. But then, that's the case with a lot of discussions and people still enjoy them.