On Story

For story, I think our target audience is looking for setting and backstory rather than plot/narrative. It's a multiplayer combat/party game after all.

An interesting example of the level of story to have is the Street Fighter game series. The games actually have a story that many people remember as the series progresses, yet it's almost entirely backstory and doesn't have much of a presence within the game outside of the characters' win quotes. Within each game, there is no standard narrative progression (rising conflict leading up to a turning point and then resolution) although you could say that each battle is its own story with its own conflict, and if a fight is particularly close, players may experience a degree of tension similar to what might be in a good narrative. This kind of tension is not deeply emotional or profound, but it is still powerful and memorable. Note that in Street Fighter, the story the players create through gameplay has little connection to the backstory of the characters or the narrative progression of the series. There's some evil criminal organization trying to take over the world, but that has no effect on the gameplay and the gameplay has no effect on the narrative. I'm not saying Street Fighter has a good story, but people who have followed the series over time often remember the story, and that's a mark of success.

Regarding what Tony brought up about making a story memorable through emotional appeal, I agree that it works better for most audiences. However moral/philosophical stories are very memorable to me as well (although I may be in the minority, and even these stories need to have a significant emotional connection). In Metal Gear Solid, one of the main points of the story was that the protagonist was a genetically inferior double of the antagonist, but having a good reason to fight for, and accumulating experience and skill over time allows the inferior one to fight on an even level with the superior one by the end of the game. As the player defeats each boss in the game, Solid Snake's health bar expands, until the end of the game when the player health bar becomes as long as a boss health bar (it's the exact same length as the final boss' health bar). Since the health bar grows through the player's actions, the gameplay actually tells the story of a character who starts with a handicap growing beyond what was believed to be his potential. One of a couple morals to Metal Gear Solid is to not let yourself be limited by the circumstances of your birth, because passion and experience may still lead you to success, and I'll always remember this game for so effectively making this point. Of course, the audience also has an emotional connection to how the protagonist's growth and victories.