I believe this question was born even before polygonal rendering, but I'm just making an assumption since I remember this very same discussion with a friend when the SNES and Genesis were nothing but a picture in some gaming magazine back in the end of the 80's as I was only 7. The discussion went trough how many colours and pixels each console could put on our 14" TVs.

To this question, I think every hardcore gamer would probably answer gameplay. But we just can't ignore the fact that graphics plays an important role on the "enjoyment" of a game as well. I'd say both have the same importance in the formula. A game with really bad gameplay plays nothing, while a game with bad graphics (not old graphics, but plain bad graphics) are a turnoff for everyone I know.

Sound plays a major part as well, but it doesn't consume that much money, time and media space as the first two (not dissing any of you musicians and voice actors, don't take it as an offense). Also, if you really dislike the sound, you can just mute your TV and put your prefered CD to play, I've done this countless times playing Mario Party and Monopoly on the N64, and really enjoyed these games. That's why I won't consider sound in this "article".

Graphics being what you see on your screen or TV, I consider gameplay something difficult to explain. I consider it everything related to how the game plays: controls, game mechanics, storyline etc. By this, looks like gameplay is even more important, by including lots of things that are crucial for a game. And it really should look like that.

But selling a million games today include a lot of advertising. If you were trying to sell a game, what would you advtertise: mind blowing graphics, or some comments from magazines/websites praising how well the game plays? I don't think I need an answer for that. At least, today's publishers don't.

Graphics does deserves a big investment from the developers, not only for marketing, but for making the gaming experience immersive. And how much it costs in a game? Million(s) of dollars in paychecks for modellers, artists etc, not taking into account equipment and stuff.

Let's think of it as a movie: you need a story, some actors and enviroments and then, turn it into a film.
Then you have the graphic models and textures for actors and enviroments.
For storyline, you need people to actually think of something and programmers for the scripts. The very same programmers you need for everything else related to gameplay.

Then, it all comes to the point where you need to balance the number on these guys to get an actually good game.

[unfinished]