To all you modders out there!

[WALP]

What she's saying is that a game should not be built around a story, but the other way around, this is totally true, story IS important, however having a functional game comes first.

.. Dear Esther dude. That kind of is the opposite of what you said and still absolutely fantastic. To an extent, Heavy Rain.

Was the idea behind dear esther not to experiment with how little interaction you could allow yourself to place in a game, and if it could still be called a game?

This alone works as a game idea, while the random dialouge being read for your in dear esther would not be enough to build a game from.

I think a story should be seen as neutral when created, and the media an execution/way of telling that story. The story does not exist in any way without its storytelling method/media.
Which fx could be the writing style in a book, the cutting in a movie or a better and more relevant example,
Walking around an environtment triggering audio
in dear esther.

If you know you want to make a game its best to go for the core gameplay first.
If you make a story it might not suit a game, or feel forced into a game when it could have been just fine or much better as say a book or a movie.

Might be trying to sound smart and well aware here but its not something I have put a lot of research into, this is just my current opinion and it is likely to change in the future.