I don''t feel that gameplay should ever be sacrificed for marketability. When a game''s quality is sacrificed it doesn''t sell well. Sure, the game will sell at first but afterward through word-of-mouth the consumers will be alerted to the fact that the game may be flashy but it sucks.
As for the difference between marketable games and good games? A marketable game may not be good but a good game will always be marketable. Also by making mediocre games that are made to sell but not please consumers will not help you in the long run. By setting a standard that your products are sub-par you are making a reputation for yourself. Why not instead make consistently good games instead of worrying about what the market is? It''s happened quite a bit before, companies that make fun games consistently get fan followings that will faithfully buy from that company. Companies that have a history of mediocre games may come out with a game that looks flashy but they''ll most likely get skipped in favor of the game from the company with the good reputation.
Gameplay should never, never be cut short. Why would people call them games if GAMEplay wasn''t the most important factor?

There''s is a good example of marketing vs gameplay occuring right now on the PS2. It comes in the form of 2 games: Tekken TT and Dead or Alive 2. I''ll be interesting to see how the two game go in the long run. Dead or Alive 2 being the better game but TTT having a renowned background and marketing $ behind it. It''ll prove how shallow or deep the games industry really is considering that there''s so little other competition around on this system atm.

One more time for the dumbies
ar+gu+ment n. A discussion in which reasons are put forward in support of and against a proposition, proposal, or case; debate.

FenrisD hit that one right on the head. There are only a handful of companies from which I''ll buy games based on their reputation alone (although I still like to play demos first). These include Blizzard, Interplay, and Activision to name a few.

The reason most people want to design games independently is because we''re tired of the shoddy crap you pick up from store shelves. I''d like to see you name one independent game designer who is not also an avid player. Good luck.

Your first objective should always be depth, but I don''t want to disuade from the need for impressive visuals and sound. Indeed, graphics and audio can create the ambience your game needs to set it above the norm. In this case, multimedia becomes part of the depth.

Just my two cents.

Nice point about indpendent designers, Tom. I''m just unclear on your meaning of depth. Do you mean story, environment, or what?

It looks as if you mean environment, butI usually hear depth used to mean storyline though. I agree that environment is very important in games because it helps draw the gamer in and keep them playing.

If, however, you meant storyline, I strongly disagree. Storyline is nice but it''s not required in all cases. Example: Twisted Metal 2. TM2 is one of my favorite games of all time(sadly the series tanked after Singletrac lost it) and it had a real POS storyline. The driving factor in that game was gameplay. For the most part, a game can have wonderful gameplay, and a horrible storyline and still be fabulous. Exceptions to this are RPGs where a good storyline is usually required. Gameplay is still the main factor of RPGs but for the most part they require a storyline to keep the gamer interested. I have seen RPGs pass on gameplay alone, which is why I don''t make a blanket statement. Example: Chrono Cross. I thought the storyline in that game was atrocious, but the battle system was a dream to use so I pressed on.

Anyway, this post is much to long so I''ll try and end it soon. Gameplay is the most important factor in games. Graphics, sound, storyline, and all that nonsense should always take a second to gameplay. A marketable game is a fun game, and a fun game is one with good gameplay.