Your thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. And playing music and gardening? Please.
I personally find narratives in games actually detract from the experience, and many games are better from having no or only minimal story built into it, and more like being sandboxes:
-Cities: Skylines
-Just Cause 2
-Prison Architect
-Kerbal Space Program
-Pool Nation
-Blood Bowl
-Hexcells
-Sins of a Solar Empire
-Elite: Dangerous
-Dungeons of the Endless
-Rocket League
-Sonic Allstars Racing
Literature has immensely more complex narratives than it is likely possible for films and games can hope to achieve. But to be able to provide interactive sandboxes with unlimited possibilities is perhaps one that only games can provide.
Nier Automata, Deus Ex, Destiny, The Witcher, Stanley Parable, Undertale
If anything I think games with the right attention can have better narratives than literature because they aren't limited to words in assisting the narrative with visualization and depiction of events / emotion.
Much like pulp fiction and early sci-fi were treated as second class literature games range the spectrum as well. I think we can likely both continue to find examples to fit our points and it just shows the range games have as a medium.
Take witcher for example, the games offers a single model of Geralt of Rivia, while someone reading the Witcher novel is free to construct their own model, their own landscape,..etc.
My point is that narratives are not a strong point of games, rather it might even be a weak point; they are not what makes games unique or different from other forms of culture. The more games move away from a narrative structure, the more unique and compelling experiences they are able to offer, is my view of the matter.
I also enjoy the visualization and imagination involved with reading books, but if you are limiting the definition of "narrative" to how much visualization is involved, then I don't think it makes sense to directly compare books to movies and games.
There is complete mechanical proof of the player's knowledge and understanding of the narrative and there is no wrong way to play. You simply get a different interpretation of the story depending on how curious you are and how closely you examine the textual evidence they elude to.
The storytelling can seem obtuse. I argue it works in support of the world design. You are the narrator.
Or maybe I should edit to sound less dismissive because that wasn't my intent.
How little can you say and how much work should the reader/viewer/player have to do before we stop really considering it a narrative? And if those gaps exist, couldn't we argue they aren't really part of the narrative? Unless, of course, the gaps are intentional but I'd argue as one example that vague character descriptions are a lack of fidelity in written language rather than intentional.
I can't attest to Destiny and my memory of Deus Ex is hazy but all the other games you listed are firmly in the second category.
"Brothers Karamazow"?
Not to mention that just equivalence of narrative content does not mean anything in terms of work of art's quality - i.e. one could write the most wretched version of Brothers Karamazov, with technically the same content, but just no substance... The true value of work of art reveals itself in how deep it is - i.e. how much it can deliver to its reader (in terms of richness of characters, jumping points for philosophical thought etc.). BK were studied for over a century now, with countless articles and PhD theses from different angles written about it - a true testament to its richness. One can wonder how deeply "Nier Automata" will be studied.
Maybe because I feel like his examination of human nature or the bleak reality of things feels less impactful now that its such a common thing to write about. I can recognize his historical importance but in modernity his work I believe falls behind.
I'd agree they're not wildly better. Though if I put as much time into one of those activities as I have into games I'd probably be really really good at them, which I bet would open up some doors if I went looking for them, rather than just being alright at games and knowing some stuff about them, for whatever that's worth (nothing at all).
That said I'm a workaholic with my job and 2 active projects outside of that who likes to lift and go outside so I can't really take fault with that mode of thinking since I've never quite captured my own idea of how I should be doing leisure.
I kind of dont see how you could play The Witcher while working overtime and having two side projects and going outside.
I don't have that much time off that I could take week off for the game.