To all you modders out there!

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Okay about this whole story vs. gameplay thing - after I went through game school I can totally understand where she's coming from there. Keep in mind, she's not saying that story is always, in any case and without exceptions less important than gameplay or whatever - she's giving advice to students.

And I can't count how often I've met students who were all like "Yeah i got this awesome game idea! It's about this angel who was cast out from heaven in this alternate cyberpunk reality where technology has replaced blah blah blah..." and when you asked them what kind of game they actually wanted to make, they were like "oh... kind of an action-rpg-adventure open world shooter thing...with melee combat!".
Needless to say, their projects always failed, unless someone shook them violently and forced them to first think about stuff like engine and core gameplay mechanics before writing the story. Because a game without story is still a game, but a story without game is a book at best and you're not in game school to write books.

So yeah, I think that's what she means there. And it's sound advice if you ask me