Mechanics and loot might get players through the door, but storytelling and world-building ensure they stay. A game without lore is functional, repetitive, and easy to abandon. When players understand why they are doing something (ie. who they are, what the world is, and what’s at stake) , every mechanic matters more.
Combat is no longer button-pressing; it is risk and survival. Exploration is no longer just clearing a map; it is a journey to discover.
A game's story gives context, and turns common interactions into meaningful events that players will remember.

World-building is imperative to the lore. A coherent, layered history makes the world more believable and players can more easily project themselves into it. A game's history & lore inform players of how they fit into the world. These consistent, internal rules create guardrails between the player and the game. Those guardrails are what allows communities to form, theories to spread, and engagement to persist long after the content pipeline slows down. Players don’t rally around patch notes.
They rally around worlds that feel real and create shared experiences .

Strip away the story, and you have a product. Build a world with intent, and you have a place people want to return to. That is the difference between a game that is played and one that endures.