Gaming experience. Fun or depth?

It needs to be fun for me to start playing it in the first place, but needs depth to give it lasting appeal.

Depth is fun.

@pitty8982: I mainly look for depth in gameplay mechanics and level design which makes games more fun to me. Depth doesn't necessarily mean overly complex to me either, just interesting or a new take on something.

I really don't like overly complicated games that are just complex for complexity sake (complex doesn't equal difficulty there is a difference) also don't like unnecessary bloat like elaborate crafting systems that are mostly just timesinks. I do like interesting crafting systems, but not bloated ones just designed to be timesinks. I also really dislike games that use gear as their primary driver for playing. Sure gear is cool if it actually does something, but just grinding for gear with bigger numbers is boring to me.

I don't play video games for the stories. Even the best games have mediocre stories at best. There's only a handful of games that I feel actually have had stories worth investing in. Gaming as a medium for story telling isn't quite there yet to me, which is why I'm not a big single player rpg fan.

I think The medium is weighted down by having to dumb down stories for 12 year olds. Even the mature rated games do it since the publishers know most games are consumed by kids anyway.

This is a really odd and weird statement the OP made.. The classification of fun is based entirely on personal preferences and depth or lack thereof has nothing to do with a objective stand point.. People can have completely different tastes in what they look for a game.. I think what you were looking for is do you prefer something that is freeform gameplay based or something that is more restrictive with a heavy focus on story narrative.

Fun is always priority, point of gaming init?

It's very important that we first define the meaning of "fun".

I didn't realise the two things were mutually exclusive - however, if a game is not fun then no matter how much 'depth' it has I'm not going to play it. I don't play games to make a living.

Ideally both. Depends on the genre too......I don't look for depth when I play a racing game for example. With other genres such as rpg or action-adventure , it's a tricky balance. If you make the story a little too complicated, in the pursuit of 'depth' or something 'philosophical ', it can provide a more fulfilling experience for sure however you can also lose a portion of the audience.

For me this has to do with the quality of the writing, the direction. I want the story to be entertaining first, but if it can be thought provoking too that's great too but I understand certain business decisions are made sometimes because they don't want to confuse a part of the audience. So ultimately I would say I would prefer a more well rounded package that focuses on entertainment and action but if the dev is confident enough to go for a more meaningful story than go for it that is even better when it works well.

I agree

I agree.

The argument should be on how people get their fun.