I think Red dead Redemption has a really good story.

Clearly not very important. It can bring some attention to it, but will have little effect on sales. Name recognition, hype and graphics are more important, which I am sad to say. For me its all about gameplay. Shit I havent played a game with a good story since Half Life 2 launched(....dont have time / interest in RPG's). It can have a mild effect on popularity and longevity.

Other than JRPGS the story and cutscenes in games can just go away. Focus on gameplay and making the worlds fun and unique.

Storytelling?

Most of the greatest games can have their entire premise summarized in 3 sentences. Often times the best-sellers have that same amount of lines in terms of dialogue.

Story-telling in videogames is overstated and given way too much importance. You have the dreams of failed movie buffs being thrown inside games to legitimize the medium being on the same level as film or something. As a result, things usually end up terrible.

Immersion is usually directly proportional to dialogue - the more talk, the more you want to walk. In most modern games, the story-telling is just pretentious and never actually gets a  point across. To begin with, a game should never be built for the sole fact of explaining a story. A game should be made with the play in mind with the story incorporated afterwards.

The story in Metroid Other M ruined its sales. The novelistic approach of Alan Wake turned people away. The story of Enslaved was not long enough nor engaging enough to attract more buyers even with ads.

3 minutes. 3 minutes is all you should need to get that point across with minor details of even SHORTER length to flesh it out more as you progress. Cutscenes should only be long at the very end... rarely would someone quit at that point.

Many great games is what I would say. There are a lot of great games without almost a hint of story, but there are many with great story telling as well. Games like Half-Life, Bioshock, Deus Ex and many others are reverred for their stories and how they tell them. In terms of sales, few of these story based games can do numbers like Mario Kart, but that undermindes the fact that many of these story based games are still very successful.

Speak for yourself. Many games that aim to be cinematic are very successful, and have a lot of fans, not just because of their story but because of their gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great game to many people (others dislike it of course), and so are the Uncharted games, Heavy Rain, Alan Wake, the Mass Effect games, the Ratchet & Clank games, and many others. All games with very cinematic stories and good gameplay, that are successful.

I agree that a game should never be built for the "sole fact of explaining a story", but incorporating the story into your game afterwards is just as bad. If you want your game to have an actual story, it should never ever be an afterthought, or the chances that your story will seem pointless to the players rise.

And saying immersion is directly proportional to dialogue is wrong. The problem in the industry is that few developers have a handle on doing dialogue well, and that's what screws it up. Heavy Rain is one of the most immersive games I have ever played and also one of the most (if not the most) immersive one. Portal has amazing dialogue. The Ratchet & Clank games are famous for their funny dialogue. 

You're not wrong in calling the industry out for its story telling, because it's not up the quality where it ought to be yet. But that's expertise that has to be gained through experimentation, and we keep refining story telling in games these days. Story telling most definitely has its place in games, we just need the quality to be there as well.

I can agree with Other M, it's a series centered around story telling with silent protagonists, and changing that formula with a bad story on top (haven't played it, but I haven't heard good things about it) is not something that will increase sales. Enslaved I can agree with to a degree, but much of it comes down to it being too tied to the story without polished gameplay to accompany it. Enslaved could have been great if the gameplay had been more polished.

But please tell me how the novelistic approach of Alan Wake turned people away, because I don't see it.

I don't know if I agree with three minutes, but I agree that developers should aim for as few cut scenes as possibly and aim for more interaction. Only have cutscenes when you're doing something that the player would not get the same out of playing.

Why do you people (some of you, anyway) still believe that games should all be the same?

Games with focus on story have existed for a while now. It doesn't look like they're going away anytime soon. As long as there's an audience for them, they will still exist.

Also, a game doesn't need to sell 10m to be successful. And just because a game (or a group of games) have sold 10m , it doesn't mean that every other game developer must make their game like that.

Diversity is good.

I never replay a game for its story.

Storytelling is very important for me. It's one of the features that attaches me game series like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Resistance etc.

When MGS Peace Walker was announced I didn't care one bit about the co-op and other new gameplay elements added. I wanted the game to see what unfolds in the storyline. If MGS Rising was non-canon I probably wouldn't buy it, but since it's canon I can't wait for it to see what they are going to do with the storyline.  

The concept of games is being look at here, and how important storytelling is to the success of a game (sales, popularity, longevity), so it is asked.  It is assumed that we are talking games here, because they all need to have something in common, if we are discussing games.  So, I asked that.  This is not to say games can't have stories, just asking how important they are to the success of a game as a game.  If it isn't that critical, then maybe focus of doing a game project needs to be on what makes it a success.

The focus of a game needs to be whatever the developer wants it to be. That's like saying that hard rock bands needs to focus on trying to be more like hip hop, because it's popular right now.

And to answer your question, no. It probably doesn't influence sales all that much.