Maybe he means that, when he wants to be told a story, he reads a book or watches a movie, and when he wants to play a game, he plays a game. I feel mostly this way myself: when I want to do something interactive, I want to do something interactive, not watch cutscenes or listen to or read dialogue. I guess this is why singleplayer story-driven games have never interested me very much, and why I prefer multiplayer games or open-ended singleplayer games (like sports or flight sims back before online games). Sometimes playing singleplayer, story/exploration-driven games feels like more work than play to me. There's 5 different branches in this dialogue tree; if I skip some, what if I miss some important detail, or something amusing? Better sit through all of them...then maybe I can get back to playing the game.
I don't see any reason there can't be interactive story-driven games. I agree though, games with a pre-defined story, and a path you have to follow, tend to lose a lot of the interactivity one would like in a game.
Extremely late to respond but the most simple example that comes to mind is Chess. Chess is all gameplay and does not rely on fancy graphics/art and there is no real story. It's pure gameplay.
I like games with great core mechanics, balance, etc. Hell I actually value soundtracks over graphics or story.
