If that's the top in storytelling in games than they certainly have a point It's pulp magazine writing at it's best.
It is considering video games and the stories in them isolated from any other stories. The article reads explicitly that the comparison is to be made with other kinds of story coming in books or movies.
The article by the way is too demanding. It is not even about master pieces, great or excellent stories. It is about good stories.
Video games occasionally come with good stories. Which show that players actually do not care about the quality of the story. They demand the game to include a story. Period.
Yes, that's what games are good for; a personal narrative emerging through player choice. It's not storytelling in a traditional sense, and if you compare stories in games with stories in books from a traditional perspective, games will almost always fall short.
It hides a schism.
Games come with a scripted story or they dont.
Most games, especially those with avatars, tell a story as the player advances the avatar through situations that once strung together, shape into a story.
There are games that provide a player with narrative components and let the player write the story, elaborate the narrative and all.
Usually, that is not that type of story that players of video games allude to. The kind of story they want is a pre written story by a writer. The article addresses this kind of story. Making it totally relevant to compare to stories delivered in other media like books or movies.
Is Ulysses by James Joyce a good game?
Quite a surprising statement from someone who considers that bad game mechanics can break a game but good game mechanics never makes a good game.
Ulysses is a master piece story delivered through a book. A book is a mere medium and must not be a game. A book is not a game. The only question is to know whether video games can act as a medium to deliver stories of the quality of Joyce's Ulysses. Just as books do.
Rhetorical question at this point.