In the old days, all you needed was

"Girlfriend is kidnapped, go save her" .

The poll is fatally flawed since it does not include an "it depends" option.

"The Last Of Us" demands story.

"Tetris" should never come anywhere near story.

GTA games demand story.

Sudoku games should never come anywhere near story.

I personally prefer games without story, because if there is a story i will simply want to complete it as quickly as possible, since i see completion of the story as the goal. Although the story might be enjoyable and make the game last longer, it tends to feel like a grind of sorts too, taking so long to complete.

Maybe it would help if i didnt have such an important role in the story, such that my own actions dont drive the story but merely direct it or similiar.

Also story based games seem limited to me, while more sandbox/pure gameplay ones usually are somewhat neverending. So id rather play a game where the focus is on the non-story part.

Here is a case of good story that saved a very dull game: BioShock

If you have the time, read the book. It's very good!

I don't even think GTA "demands" a story. It requires a series of missions but I have no interest in watching cut-scenes or following the story which gives rise to the missions... I just find the fun doing the mission. I'm interested if I'm typical or atypical in this regard - are the stories in games as important as the stories in porn films?

The stories in porn are as terrible as possible, and the whole reason I read steamy romance novels instead - if porn movies had actual good stories I would watch them. I haven't played GTA V yet, but any given MMO or something like Skyrim is comparable - there is nothing inherently interesting to me about traveling across the map or slaughtering enemies. Those kind of games rarely contain the gameplay I actually like. (puzzles, tactical battles, time management, and building things) But I love MMOs that have good quest stories and I played Skyrim for 300 hours because I wanted to find all the pieces of story associated with each dungeon and the main plot line.