What do players mean by "gameplay"?

"RnM92;c-16263200" wrote:
I'd also like to add that animations alone are not gameplay. That's why I don't agree with developers labelling objects that add new animations in stuff packs as "gameplay objects", infact it's pretty dishonest. They aren't, most of them don't actually add anything to the game other than an animation. The only time it can be considered a gameplay object is if it affects the game in some way, such as increasing a skill or causes something else to happen. I would consider the bowling lane and climbing wall as gameplay objects, because they come with a skill, but not many more of the objects. Unfortunately the vast majority of objects I've seen in the Sims 4 don't add much of the way of gameplay. There has also been barely any change to the sims themselves other than what parenthood and vampires added, which I find extremely disappointing. The sims themselves I find very limited and quite boring. The sims 2 was always adding to and further developing the sims, such as attractions and turn ons/offs in Nightlife, temperature in Seasons, hobbies in Freetime, holiday goals and ability to learn greetings and local skills in Bon Voyage, reputation in Apartment Life, new life states in various packs etc. Not to mention the sims were actually very fleshed out and highly developed right from the get go. That is a big part of what makes good gameplay in the Sims IMO.

Also emotions IMO don't add much in terms of gameplay either. Certain things give the sims a moodlet (which doesn't do anything gameplay wise), which then dictate what emotion the sim is experiencing. All that does is we are told by the UI that the sim is happy, fine, flirty etc. Apart from that a few specific interactions become available and a whim or two but that is it. We are just told what the sim is feeling (a pop up saying they're happy is not gameplay). Does not affect gameplay in any other way whatsoever. The sim doesn't actually behave like their emotion. It's pretty disappointing considering they made such a big deal about emotions in their marketing, claiming they were the big, new gameplay feature that was so big they had to sacrifice toddlers, pools, ghosts, open world etc.