Gameplay isnt the most important thing in games.

[Normchacho]

Smeags said:
At the end of the day, games are games because the individual(s) ability to interact with the medium.

You mention the end result, which is the feedback that the player receives from the game in question (Whether it be happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, sad, etc.), but you also mention that what sets games apart from the rest is its interactivity. But interactivity and gameplay are one in the same. Gameplay is described as "the specific way in which players interact with the game".

Without gameplay, there is no game. It is a core foundation on which games are created, and therefore many people see it as one of (if not the most) integral functions that a game should be judged by. A game can exist without a story, or music, and any number of things that we see now-a-days. But a game cannot exist without gameplay. That is why so many people (including myself) prize games on how the player interacts within the game world.

So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but just highlighting why many people prize gameplay over all else.

That's not really a good reason for gameplay being the most important part of a game...without graphics a game wouldn't be a game either, would it? Does that make graphichs the most important part of a game?

The main point here is that for a game to be excellent, the gameplay doesn't need to be excellent. Realistically, all the gameplay needs to do is allow the player to go from the beginning of the game, to the end, without any major issues. As long as the gameplay does that, it's fine. A perfect example of this is Journey. You litterally walk from one end of the game to the other, but it's fine, because that's not the focus of the game.