Gameplay and game design

Many people will tell you that Gameplay is the most important part of a game, there are a few people who go on about "Gud GrafIx" but these day these instances are rare, Gameplay, and game design form the base, or foundation of a game, sound and graphics are placed on top of this.

The old classics (pacman pong etc) are still fun to play today as they have a good game design. The people who designed these games knew how they wanted people to interact with the game environment and what made them fun even though they don't quite have HDR lighting and specular maps.

These fundamentals are still here today, but are sometimes thought of differently, games can be based on a book a film or a story then adapted into gameplay characteristics afterwards.
As technology advances games move forward into different gameplay genres, this became apparent as the first 3 dimensional games where developed, this was more significant when wolfenstein or Doom where made but i suppose battlezone opened the floodgates for the First person shooter genre.















Other Genre's began to find their roots as the first RPG's where developed, also the first Real time strategy games such as Dune where made, this gave something for developers to aim for and be able to put their own story or ideas into a certain game genre.
As money became a more important part of making games publishers kept chucking out hundreds of really bad games with poor gameplay (and/or graphics) just to make cash, games like this are still made by the bucketload today and probably will continue to be made, the only exceptions are when a games designer has an idea or talent to make a good game that is strong on gameplay and style, game producers/writers/designers such as Hideo kojima or Shigeru Miyamoto make these fantastic games as they have a desire or vision to create their game. Not only do they make good games but they end up being popular and earning a lot of money, way beyond the budget used to make it.
These days there seems to be an opening for good games as good games tend to make a lot of money. Third party developers or indie games are also on the rise, as these developers create games because they enjoy them and want to create their idea, much like the old classics like pacman or space invaders. Gameplay innovations are also gaining popularity as developers make all kinds of crazy gizmos and peripherals but more importantly new genres and sub genres.
I use the phrase Sub genres as games are becoming a lot like some films in the way that there hard to define, an example could be Deus X as its a first person shooter but has a lot of RPG elements, System shock 2 is also simular to this as it has its own level system and story driven gameplay. I wouldn't call these games an RPG or an FPS, but perhaps an Action RPG or something like that.
As games develop they will continue to get bigger budgets and better visuals, some games will become a lot like films, single player FPS's usually have a story behind them and as budgets get better so does the writing, even if their are blockbuster games that have superb storylines and mega graphics hopefully the gameplay foundations are still in place, as people won't play a game that isn't fun.