Gameplay, gameplay and gameplay are the three most important things for a video game to have.
That’s the view of games industry legend and co-author of the Fighting Fantasy series Ian Livingstone OBE who was speaking to The Train2Game Blog at Develop Conference 2012.
“You’ve got to create a strong storyline, a great narrative, have a great a great emotional engagement.” said Livingstone.
“But above all, with a game, the gameplay has to be fantastic because people will always buy a game which has great gameplay and poor graphics over something which has great graphics and poor gameplay.” he continued, emphasising the important of gameplay over graphics.
“So when people ask what are the three most important things in a game? I will say gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.”
Livingstone also suggested that being original and creative are key factors in becoming a successful game developer.
“Be true to yourself, do something that you want to do, make something original, be creative, express yourself in your own way and hopefully you’ll find an audience that appreciates what you’do.” he said.
“If you spend your life copying other people, I suspect that will never lead to monetary success and nor will it satisfy your soul. So, be true to yourself, that’s the most important thing you can do.” the Fighting Fantasy author added.
Ian Livingstone was one of a number of industry figures who aided in mentoring Train2Game students taking part in Make Something Unreal Live last April. The Games Workshop co-founder said he was “delighted” to be part of the initiative, which saw teams creating games based on Fighting Fantasy novels.
The full interview with Ian Livingstone, covering everything from Fighting Fantasy, to game design and Make Something Unreal Live will be published later today.
In the meantime, there’s more Ian Livingstone news here on The Train2Game Blog, while you can also catch up with last week’s Develop Conference coverage.
Do you agree with Livingstone that gameplay is by far the most important thing in making a good game?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or here on the Train2Game forum.
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I totally agree with what Ian said, I think too many games today are caught up in making graphics top priority when it’s the gameplay that really matters, 20 years ago graphics where no were near as good as they are now, but the gameplay made up for that and some real addictive games were being created back then.