Where procedural games differ from walking simulators is in their lack of curation: they let you walk wherever you want, including perhaps into uninteresting places, rather than down a well-prepared path that tells a particular story.
Even though I am not a huge gamer myself, I have noticed that when I do play games, I often do find myself getting frustrated with parts of games that I deem “unnecessary” to the progression of the story. For example, even during my gameplay of “Gone Home,” I began to get frustrated when I couldn’t find the code to open the safe in the basement, which was making the gameplay take longer than anticipated. Overall, “Gone Home” is an uncomfortable game to play as it goes against many norms and conventions present in more typical online games, such as the existence of a clear and explicit objective or goal that keeps the player interested in the outcome (ex. “winning” the game, defeating a monster, etc.).