Games don't need stories.

[Reasonable]

Pyro as Bill said:

Soriku said:

Pyro as Bill said:
Replayability > Music >>>>>> Graphics >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Story

Who plays a game for it's story? The stories in games make horror B-movies look like Oscar nominees.

Are you sure it's because you haven't played a game with a good story?

For me story is important, but not always absolutely necessary. A good story helps me gets sucked into the game, the characters, the music that goes along with it, and the gameplay (because beating the crap out of characters that are dicks in story is nice when you have good gameplay to go along.)

I don't play RPGs so that may be why.

Half Life 2, kill the enemies, save the world. Zelda OoT-TP, kill Ganon, save Hyrule. I played Prototype earlier this year, horrible story. In some cases the heavy focus on story hurts the game, Prototype. In others it seemed to help a mediocre game, Bioshock. Advance Wars, I hated all the story crap but it's still a great game.

My most played game this gen has no background story whatsoever, Team Fortress 2. I still don't know why Red team fights Blu so much and I don't care.

TF2, Portal, any fighting game, NSMB, Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Braid, Plants v Zombies, Left 4 Dead, World of Goo, the list is endless.

Games do not need stories. Text adventures and their modern day CGI versions do.

Half Life 2 has a pretty clever story, but Valve took the approach where its up to you whether you dig into it or not, which I think is the best way to go.  However, just because you chose to play the game without bothering with any of the deeper backstory doesn't change the fact it is there.

TF2 is a pure multiplayer game - of course it has no story!  I play it lots and love its zany humour, but that's exactly the kind of game that doesn't really have nor need a story - it has a carefully implied context to give it a setting, but that's not a story.

Some games are definately going to need stories, but of course many, perhaps most, don't.  Take Uncharted 2 - it simply wouldn't work without its Saturday morning adventure serial story and context, it's characters are too well presented and it's world too realistic to work without a narrative.  Bioshock whether you like the story or not certainly wouldn't work without one IMHO.  Again, the setting is too rich.  There needs to be a story.  I thought the story in Bioshock was weak in the end, although the game started well, but that's the problem - those games that do need stories all too often have weak ones.

Basically, anything like Fallout 3, Uncharted, etc. do need stories.  Those are games.  You're last line is in conflict with itself. You can't say games don't need stories but text adventures do.  Text adventures are games - ergo some games need stories.