Some of my favourite games do not have a story, or only an optional storyline that is secondary to the main experience, like Rome: Total War, X3: Terran Conflict and to a lesser extent Morrowind. Some of my other favourites are completely story driven (Knights of the Old Republic, The Witcher, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines).

What works best depends on the overall style of the game I'd say.

Or, if you want Pong with some story added, there's Alphabounce - breakout, with an odd sci-fi/exploration/mining/rebellion http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExcusePlot.

But tetris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

It depends on the game: I'm fine with racing games, and games that are more toys than actual games, like Garry's Mod and Minecraft, having no stories, but generally I think at least a little bit of story can enrich a gaming experience: if in CoD multiplayer the gameplay was the only thing that mattered, you may as well play as coloured blocks instead of SAS or Spetsnaz or whatever, just running around in a world of blocks rather than buildings, etc.

Amazing. I can't believe I hadn't seen this before.

I'd rather a game have a story but I prefer the way it is done in Oblivion where I can play for hours without ever touching the main quest. I remember when I first got the game I played it for 150 hours and never touched the main quest.

I prefer Atari to just give me the paddle so I can go on a terrorist rampage with it.