The term didn’t really take off and become weaponized, however, until the growing resentment of “outsiders” and indie games that would culminate in Gamergate
Pride in the term/label of "gamers" was the driving force that caused people to start to resent walking simulators, especially due to the fact that they pushed the boundaries of what constituted as a game.
In games, therefore, we have a chance to enact our most basic relationship to the world-our desire to prevail over adversity, to survive our inevitable defeats, to shape our environment, to master complexity, and to make our lives fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
Simplistic, achievable goal. Maybe that's what makes games so appealing?
This kind of narrative structure need not be limited to such simplistic content or to an explicitly mazelike interface.
Maybe the author's trying to say that the best way to make a story in a maze is to make sure the player doesn't realize they're in a maze in the first place.
On the computer the journey story emphasizes navigation—the transitions between different places, the arrivals and departures—and the how-to’s of the hero’s repeated escapes from danger.
It's interesting how navigation and world-building are more closely tied to computers than movies, even though the latter appeals most to the visual elements of a story.