After seeing how unimpressed people were with the X1X’s focus on resolution bump, it got me curious about how each of us prioritize what is most important when choosing games to buy.

For myself, the graphical aspects of a game are rather low on the list.

This is what my list looks like:

#01 - Enjoyable Gameplay Mechanics (definitely the most important!!! )
#02 - Comfortable Controls
#03 - No Severe Slowdowns (i.e. dropping below 15 frames per second)
#04 - Very Short Load Screens/No installs (preferably less than 3 seconds)
#05 - Enjoyable Difficulty Level
#06 - Great Replayability/Post Game Content/Unlockables/Secrets/etc.
#07 - Interesting Game World/Level Design
#08 - Excellent User Interface
#09 - Great Art Direction
#10 - Great Music and Sound Effects
#11 - Optional split-screen gameplay (really awesome to have when hanging out with friends/roommates :D )
#12 - Enjoyable Story
#13 - Higher Graphical Fidelity
#14 - Higher Resolution

So, what does your list of gaming priorities look like?

Art direction is quite high but the technical part is at the bottom. I've gotten to a point where I just don't care about that stuff anymore.

#01 - Enjoyable Gameplay Mechanics
#02 - Enjoyable Story
#03 - Enjoyable Difficulty Level 
#04 - Comfortable Controls
#05 - Interesting Game World/Level DesignGreat
#06 - No Severe Slowdowns
#07 - Replayability/Post Game Content/Unlockables/Secrets/etc. 
#08 - Great Art Direction 
#09 - Great Music and Sound Effects
#10 - Excellent User Interface
#11 - Very Short Load Screens  (this doesnt bug me that much)
#12 - Higher Graphical Fidelity
#13 - Higher Resolution
#14 - Optional split-screen gameplay (basically dont care)

Took yours and re-arranged them abit.
This is probably what my priorities look like.


Im surprised you value story and game world design so low.

*edited it again after thinking some more on it.

I prioritize graphic above all else but still behind the gameplay and stable framerate. I'd also prefer a good artstyle over graphic. As for the story, music, etc that's just a bonus for me. So that would make it 4th on my priority.

After Gameplay, story is the next most important thing to me.
Then music
Then graphics, prefer different art styles

Sick of 2D "adventure" and platforming games though. So even if all the above is good, if it's 2D, it's a no buy from me. There's just way too many of them.

graphics then guns... because i like pew pew pew pew.... then fps... because my eyes are sensitive to frame drops... then the rest...



seriously though.. gameplay > story > artsyle = graphics > music?

On the bottom they barely matter for me, a game can be amazing while not being graphically impressive, however if a game is top tier and it also has nice graphics then even better, in other words its a nice thing to have but never the main reason i would be interested in playing a game.

The importance of two things strongly depends on the type of game.

I won't make a list, because it would be different for every game. But in general, I don't care much about graphics, especially not about technological things.

1 Gameplay
2 Story/Narrative
3 Presentation
4 Music
5 Not a single framerate drop
6 Post game content

I'm not going to make a list but, past a certain point, graphics aren't that important.

That point, though, is really important. Graphical improvement can directly affect game-play. I used to hate FPS games because they made me sick. Just watching a video of GoldenEye someone posted recently gave me a headache and I had to turn it off. I loved Daggerfall but it used to make me feel physically sick. Advancements in graphics improved gameplay in that genre immensely.

Beyond that, however, I don't care all that much. I'm perfectly fine with Borderlands or Skyrim era graphics.

Now, some of the things that come with it are great, like increased draw distances, so it's not like I don't want the medium to keep moving forward.