^Tastes are just tastes, we all live happily with that.
It's just that when you state things like:
"By text adventures I mean the books from years ago that had 'turn to page 46 to take path A or turn to page 48 to take path B'. I never considered these books to be games and I don't consider their modern equivalents to be games either."
you're demonstrating that you are talking of things you don't know.
Have you ever played a textual adventure game? An Infocom or Magnetic Scrolls one, for example? Because that's not how they worked.
It's ok if you didn't and it's ok if you don't want to, and don't want to play RPGs as well. Or even follow the story in HL or Portal and play them as FPS/Adventure/puzzle games.
It's just that there's a big difference between "I don't need a story to enjoy my game and I don't like story-heavy games" and "no game ever needed a story because those that do aren't games". The first states your personal taste, the second defines games in your own opinion -and according to the limits of your experience- and doesn't further the discussion one bit with people that didn't redefine the common term "game" according to your own criteria -or with different gaming experiences.
It's not about reviewers or other gamers' taste being any more relevant that yours. It's about at least knowing what we're talking about, and your own personal definition of game is not what the thread was about. It was about the element of narration in what people generally accept to call a videogame.
Edit and PS: Merry Christmas to everybody, of course :)
Essay Pro