Sometimes simple choices on how to solve
a problem in different ways, make a game worth to replay
it.
Something like: Join the mages guild or the Fighters guild,
Once you make the choice, you have to stick with it,
The player finishes the game and wants to play the other fraction too.

As blattsalat said: erotic, sexyness are very simple things to make a good game.
They are natural drives which makes the brain say "play it on until you found everything". This works also with collectable beautyful things and dominating (all the natural drives).
This do not realy work with games for girls and women.
I think erotic is the best of all drives. It makes the player the most wanting more, next to dominating (fighting games, 3D shooters). Collecting can be very good. And one more is knowledge. This is the most difficult. I know only three games which I realy recomment for learning something about life: SilentHill2, FinalFantasyVI(III) and VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines.
SilentHill2 - is the ultimate idea of all ideas. Letting the player feel what the "hero" is feeling by interpretating the world.
FinalFantasyVI - no, the hero is not the most important of a game as final fantasy VI shows. If someone knows the aniamted batman series. Some of the episodes were good but some were bad. Why? They are all batman! Because it´s the bad guy whos important. He must be intelligent, must be able to defeat complete legions without super powers, he must be a genius, the player "must" understand/feel with the enemy, and the bad guy must be interesting!
VampireBloodlins - Again the bad guy thing, but even more. You can be a taxi driver and defeat a complete "religion/state/kingdom", if you know how. I won´t tell the story of bloodlines here but it´s fantastic, logic and "who don´t know it missed something".
As I said erotic is something real good for a game. For example, make a real simple game like arcanoid. After every level the player gets a more sexy pic. And ready is a game with a reason to play every level without getting bored too fast. I wouldn´t have bought street fighter, VampireBloodlines and all my other games without all these sexy girls.
And after you have a good story/idea/sexy pics you can make the game as good as you like. You learn creating good games, by creating them (don´t stop! Then your stamina and knowledge will raise and your games will get better and nothing will be impossible anymore but you will see what´s needed and what is not) and by watching how others do good games (for example bloodlines: the levels constist of MODELS!). I hope I didn´t forget anything. But I am sure I did. But the most important things are told.

I think a good story and funny characters, and good textures are most important for making a good game...

For me, I can stand playing through some of the lowest rated games (not content ratings) a few dozen times. The ability for the user to come up with their own challenges makes a strong impact on this. Try to get it so that you can come up with your own challenges for the player to discover and try out on their own. The more that can be thought of by the player, the better the replay.

good ones guys! thanks~

I agree with ulillillia.
I play GTA San Andreas so much, not to complete the missions, but to do MY MISSIONS. For example, survive a police chase on a whole lap of the highway before going to an airport, hijacking a plane an parachuting out over my airbase and saving.
If you can give the player the oppertunity to do stuff like that then you don't need super graphics.

- a very good story, like hl1 ,hl2.
- i think 1st person shooters the best but is up to you choose.
- good graphics but without slowdown the computer to much, doom3 choose graphics for the best computers.
- interaction NPCs-Player, a lot of answers lke hl1 and 2.
- a good final, if you make a perfec game but a stupid final the gamer will throw your CD in the wall

this is my opinion but im not the voice of the gamers

- lots degrees of freedom
- intelligent stories
- believeable worlds
- many options
- incentives and rewards

you can not meassure fun. you can only exclude bad points and anoying gameplays and bugs but the rest is unratable.
Or how in gods name can you explain tetris other then that.

some dont like deep stories or multiple paths some doe. So there is no guideline.

And whenever you run out of idea replace them with tits.
The entertainment industry does it all the time and they sell rubbish cds, movies and books with that method. So it must work.


something i enjoy the most are the enemies. Its no good fight if you dont fight a good villain. No matter if games, movies or fastfood.....*Die Ronald! i will kick your....!*

how to fight him is secondary and by far not that important to me.

But others dont care about that. So again no guideline visible.

cheers

a good story ,great charators, good graphics, easy to use user interface,
excellent inviornments with original design. plus alot more.