Story, the sequential (and there is the problem) telling of events is the problem. However there are elements of 'story' that any interaction can exploit: character, sense of place, activities. There is nothing necessarily sequential about having a character in an interaction. The more you interact with it a character can become more interesting in a non-linear manner. So imposing a linear progression on an interaction based on 'the ball is wild' events is not a good thing. That doesn't mean a pinball can't evoke a place and have interesting interactions with characters and do interesting things. You should not constrain the design "to tell a story". There are plenty of mediums more suited to telling stories, interactions need to invent ways to take elements of stories and make them engaging in interactive ways.

or so I have been saying for a long time....