I'm not saying story is a bad thing. It's not, but it seems like a lot of devs focus so heavily on coming up with an engaging story and good visuals that they forget to actually make the game fun to play.
I think about some of the games I've played over the years, and a lot of my favorites either had fairly limited or even downright absurd plots that basically boil down to an excuse to make the gameplay loop happen.
Just a random musing.
Complete opposite here. I used to think stories were important in video games, and now all of my most played games are 99% gameplay. I think essentially all video game writing is trash and extended cinematics are the death of the medium.
I think games just need a comprehensive story and that's all. Think of the original MW trilogy. While the first game is actually pretty reasonable and realistic with it's plot, the second and third games go off the rails with any realism in the events, but it's fine because it's explained well enough in universe and the game is fun. Most games don't need a masterpiece of writing unless they are story based games like a visual novel or something with significantly branching story results based on choices made.