>How would a video game be made that is on par with literature?
I assume you're just talking about "great" literature. 'Cause shit, I had a much deeper experience playing The Witness than I did reading Atlas Shrugged.
>Movies, music ,books and games can all be enjoyed without stories; movies for their visuals, music for their melodies, books for their prose and games for their game mechanics(gameplay).
Keep in mind visuals, music, and text are all potentially in a video game as well, so that's all part of the experience.
>So why is video games the exception? Why are 90% of video games extremely mediocre, have great gameplay but piss story or great story but next to none gameplay?
is a fine (maybe incomplete) answer, but I would also add that while most video games are shit, the same thing is true for any major art field/industry. 90% of books and movies being released today are turbopleb garbage. Add that to the fact that video games are a relatively young industry compared to the others, and the people in it are still figuring out what's possible within the medium.
>Why can't video games have great gameplay and a good story?
A major hurdle is the perception both within and without the industry that video games are entertainment, not art (a dichotomy I question in the first place).
A lot of the people in the vg industry are people with backgrounds in computer science/programming and maybe visual/graphic design as well, and the more "creative" ones are still pulling their influences from film, the way early film tried so hard to just be theater. But even people well-versed in our traditional idea of storytelling wouldn't be able to make a video game that takes advantage of the unique way in which stories and experiences can be generated through music, visuals, and interactivity.
My main problem with the answer provided by is that, while I agree that interactivity and linear storytelling seem at odds with each other, I think that's more a problem with our inability to conceptualize ways of reconciling them.
I don't think a video game that wishes to be cohesive and compelling necessary needs to go the Undertale route of multiple paths, though that can be successful. I've played an elusive few great games that guided me (the player) through some kind of over-arching narrative (though the structure of that narrative must necessarily differ from our traditional understanding of narrative) without making me feel like I was just running down a narrow hallway.
>I don't believe it's impossible for a video game to be more than fun.
Me neither. But I think people also put fun and depth at odds with each other (see: entertainment vs. art; also, why comic works aren't regarded as highly as tragic/dramatic ones). People unfairly compare the experience they get from playing a good, interesting video game to the experience they get from a book, which, past a certain extent, is unproductive.