I understood games, first and foremost, to be things that provide fun and entertainment value.  Your time playing is enjoyable and captivating.  What you do while playing you want to keep doing, because you enjoy it.  Graphics, storyline, voice acting, music, and other things, can lend to the experience.  However, is there more, or a need for more?

I am curious what people think that games are expecting from games besides them being fun?  Please list what you think, and also what you have seen others think they should be.  I have seen things, when they get discussed, where the expectation is a game have an epic story, that rivals movies or other mediums for story telling.  I believe I see a need to educate to be in the mix to.  Maybe the experience needs to be a moving one while playing, that has an emotional impact

But, in a nutshell, is it ok if a game is just fun, and the fun is replayable?  Or do games need to be more than that?

I think games can and should teach us a lot of things.

My mother tongue is French and I pretty much learned English from watching Star Trek with my dad and playing video games (thanks A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time)!

Also, from playing JRPGs I learned some valuable lessons. Some games have a lot of heart to them, the Persona ones for example. I think the interaction with the different characters are so believable, I mean it can't be that different from real life!

From playing SHMUPs and other retro platformers (yeah, the ones with cheap deaths if you don't know what you're doing!), they helped me work my brains and memorize things and patterns and understand how and when to advance in certain situations. In real life, I compare it to when I'm doing a test and practicing before that test (and more).

Yes. That's what I want from a game- fun. Too many of the newer games are so much about graphics and story that, well, the fun is gone. This isn't to say that gaming is a bad medium to tell a story, but it shouldn't be forced; let me have fun exploring it, going through it, living it, etc.

This.

I personally never cared too much for stories in games. Good ones are nice to have but my prob with them is that like movies, they're a one-time experience. When replaying a game that focuses heavily on a plot, the surprise is completely gone. You already know what's gonna happen, why it's happening, and who's gonna live or die. If the gameplay itself isn't good enough to keep you going a 2nd time, then you'll get bored fast.

Nowadays, the thing I look for most in a game is replayability. It really sucks shelling uot $30-60 on a game that'll only be fun for a few days. It just seems like there's not too much incentive to replay campaigns nowadays. MGS4 was the first game I owned on my ps3 and one of the few campaigns I played through multiple times. Really didn't care that it had trophies.

I expect every game I play to be definitive.

Being educational. I've learned that after being shot you can lay down for 5-10 seconds and recharge your health.

What I, personally, expect from games is no more or less than I expect from any other kind of cultural item. Games are, after all, social, cultural, intellectual and artistic constructs no different from any other form of human expression. Games can - and do, in fact - facilitate communication of all kinds of ideas, just as every other medium.

What I don't expect from games, is "fun". I'm not the first one to say this, but it truly is a useless, vapid excuse of a term. What does it actually designate? Nothing and everything. It's entirely subjective - and, I think, far too narrow to cover the wealth of possible game experieces - and that makes it useless as a critical tool. It's actually the basis of this entire thread, because playing for "fun" is considered to be a frivolous and puerile activity.

What I want from a game is simply a lusory experience. What kind of experience that is, is entirely dependent upon the game.

Music.

It gives sense of inmersion and atmosphere to ANY game, party, rpg or fps

Yeah, that's the other answer I would give. A game with good music is almost instantly a classic in my book!

I expect when I buy a game to not have any game breaking bugs (looking at you Fallout)  It depends on the genre if Im playing an RPG you bet your ass it better have a good story with characters that dont suck. Im going 2 be spending the next 20 plus hours wiht them. for fighting games it better have some semblance of balance and great character design (this does not mean anime enchanced breast) racing cars better handle properly, etc.