First off, welcome to the Escapist, Mr. Butts. It's always good to have a new column to follow. However, I can't help but disagree with the stance you took in this particular edition. Blind Chance essentially covered what I want to say, but I'll add to it that, even for gamers interested in story -- a minority, to be sure -- it's usually the quality of the story that matters, not the actual subject matter. Besides that, for the average player the quality of the gameplay is infinitely more important -- there is a reason that they're called video games, and not Interactive fiction. Of course, there is always the sadly defunct genre named interactive fiction, which is a useful label for people looking for games that tell a good story.
Regardless, because gameplay is so important, gameplay based genres are much better at telling a prospective player what to expect than story based genres. For example, I love science fiction, and I love first person shooters, but I can't stand real time strategy games. If I were to ask for a science fiction game, I could quite easily wind up with a Starcraft or Command and Conquer game, when I would personally get more out of something along the lines of Quake or Gears of War.
Which leads to another point -- the people who are so concerned with games as art frequently ignore the fact that games can be art through their gameplay as much as through their story. Games may work as a story telling medium, but -- as with the differences between film and novels -- games lend themselves to storytelling in ways that are unique to the medium. The future of games as art lies in finding ways to combine gameplay and story telling in a way that enhances both, not in pushing gameplay to the backburner in order to tell a better story.
