pixel for a thought: environment versus plot

In any game, does the environment create the plot, or does the story content give rise to an environment?

This question came to me while I read the following quote, which comes from Mark J. P. Wolf's article titled "Narrative in the Video Game," published a collection of scholarly essays concerning The Medium of the Video Game. Although the book's a decade old and chock-full of even more outdated and over-intellectualized notions of "art" and "space" (primarily referring to obscure 1990s drab as case examples), it still offers a decent look into the essence of game design, or the design-behind-the-design. One such case I though applied particularly well to the casual genre:

"Rather than creating an inherent message or metaphor within a single storyline or multiple lines lived by different characters, the author can embed a worldview into the structure of the game itself, which is then 'lived out' by the player-character.... So while a player might feel free to move about or interact within a game... the ideas and worldview of the author are still shaping the experience, albeit in a more subtle manner.... Goals and obstacles, choices and their consequences, and the means and ends with which the player is provided; these become the tools that shape narrative experience, and the real narrative becomes the player's own passage through the narrative maze of branching storylines and events. At the same time, though, it is likely that games with the simplest of narratives (fighting, shooting, racing) will remain popular and, for some, will always be the core experience of video gaming. (emphasis added)"

For a moment, let's forget that the best games are the ones with equally strong skill levels in "environment" and "plot" qualities, and refer to the chicken-and-the-egg scenario at the post's beginning. In your experience and preference, are the most enjoyable (casual) games the ones with a simple "worldview" or environment in which you carry out a series of repetitive actions (Bit.Trip Runner comes to mind) or the ones that heavily rely on a defined story, either through the designer's or player's creation (e.g. MapleStory)? And although in an ideal world everything is fair and equal, suppose that it's crunch time on a game project and you have to sacrifice one aspect's development for another's. Does environment, or plotline, take the cut, and why?