I hope this isn't too off-topic, but I wanted to add my own 25-cents to the story vs. gameplay thing:
I still think it's a bit shortsighted to single out a particular medium or component of a game and look at it separately as a way of evaluating the whole game. I find it way more interesting to look at how things intersect, and I believe this is where things are going to get interesting. i.e. the point in some games where narrative and gameplay go hand-in-hand, in some cases the story elevates what would have been pointless gameplay without the context. I did a 30 minute talk about this at Austin GDC, but I'll cut to the chase here.
A big example of this is in Final Fantasy VI (the one for super nintendo, not anime-tits VII) when you wind up stuck on an island with Cid. The player has a choice to feed them fish, or not. There's a chance they might accidentally feed him poisoned fish. Or they can just ignore Cid and wander the island until he dies.
Rather than looking at just the story or just the gameplay, what I find I like is that entire "slice of cake" at that particular moment. The gameplay itself is just walking around and pressing A. There's not a lot going on purely in gameplay. Because there is the added layers of character development (minimalist in FF6, but I personally found that effective) and a history of playing with particular characters up until the current point of the story - the simple actions that you're performing can have a profound impact on some players.
This is a very simple, but it's also very clear where the story benefits come in. It's quite possible to extrapolate this to an entire game, or a mixture of this and other techniques.
Personally, I don't see a great advantage/disadvantage to linear storytelling. There are pros and cons, but ultimately it's kind of like "black and white" in films. It has it's places, and it is quite good at certain things. (one example is making points about fatalism) It sometimes channels the variety of interpretations of a game in a particular (sometimes more narrow) direction, but I don't see that as necessarily being a bad thing. (in some cases it can be a very enjoyable, meaningful thing in fact)
On the other hand, I don't believe that games -require- stories. Yet all games have some measure of context to their interactions. Context can be stories, graphics, music - things that help us human beings attribute meaning to the collision boxes flying around. The creators pick how much of an extent that has on impacting the gameplay. There are many points on this gradient, already made and yet-to-be-made that are all valuable, unique experiences.
Now I personally enjoy being entertained on both a story-level and a gameplay-level at the same time. (and a music-level and visual-level as well, natch) When the two flow well together, and intermingle - it's a really rare and awesome experience. I want to see more of this!
We've seen indie games that have been quite amplified by story (Terry, Cactus, etc) - even stories that aren't presented as "bread crumbs" to motivate the player. Sometimes the story context is just there to provide mood, sometimes it's just there to mislead you. Those are all valid uses of story context are valid in my opinion.
I ranted a bit more about this here, if you're interested:
http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/mega-rant-the-state-of-indie/--
Another point I'd like to raise is the one of "metaphor". Some developers see story as a metaphor for gameplay, i.e. "we need an excuse for why the character does ____". I'm more interested in gameplay as metaphor for a world.
The gameplay, story, visuals, audio, etc all become a metaphor for some imagined world that you want to share with others.Now I'm not pretending that that ideal can be held up in all cases, in fact it would probably be a bad idea to make it the be-all and end-all.
Holistic Design is also key: letting all the elements influence each other in subtle and not subtle ways - so that they become intertwinedThat said, I don't think all elements of a game have to be equal. I can picture a game that focused on story, with less focus on interaction that was awesome. I can also picture a game that focused purely on gameplay with zero story that was awesome. In reality, we don't have to imagine too hard to conjure up images of these games, because they either already exist or the essential pieces of them do.
Regardless of my opinions or the opinions of others here, if you have a strong urge to try a game idea that is "too different" or something "not different enough" because you think it'd make for an awesome game - just make the damn game.
These discussions are fun, but ultimately they're very subjective. At some point you have to be able to step back and admire the grandeur of many different creators making all these different little unique things of beauty, regardless of whether or not they happen to align with your personal tastes. I'd hope that games get even more diverse (even if that means less interactive in some cases) because I love experiencing different creative voices. That's what I like about the indie scene!
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