Hot on the heels of our last poll (still open) which asked which Bungie game had the best story: Halo, Marathon, Oni or Myth, the latest post at Penny Arcade begs the question about what the role for plotline is in games, anyway.

There are varying points of view, even among giants in the gaming industry. Penny Arcade links to an item at Interactive Media Division weblog that quotes Id Software's John Carmack of Doom and Quake fame as saying that the story in a game is "like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not important."

That's a stark contrast to Bungie's own Jason Jones, who has long pushed the idea that the story is really the thing in a game. He gave his thoughts on why Bungie spends so much effort on storyline in the Making Of The Halo 2 E3 Demo film:

There are so many different ways to tell a story. There are so many good stories. Telling a story in a game is different than telling a story in a book, because a huge part of the story of a game is just lending flavor to the times that you're playing it, so that when you're driving around in the Warthog with the Marine hanging out the side door and the guy in the back with the chain gun, that you believe that you're on this alien artifact called Halo circling a gas giant light-years away from Earth. It's context, I guess that's the best way to say it. I don't know if we're crazy, or stupid... or we just like good stories, or what. But we certainly worry about that a lot more than you might we'd have to in a game that's mostly just about action and about not thinking.

So, what do you think? Is story important for a game, or not?