Walking simulators became the most visible examples of the tensions associated with indie gaming, which often involve limits to interactions and the removal of recognizable mechanisms of challenge and victory
This builds on the idea of an expectation from players when they refer to a game. Walking simulators contrast with the fast and violent nature of gaming, which was the dominant form of gaming at the time. The absence of the agency of survival seems to take away a vital part of what makes a game a gaming experience, is what the consensus at the time.