Gone Home was far from universally hated. Certainly, there's a vocal crowd of people who hated it, but it has a 7/10 on Steam and a 4.5/5 rating on Itch.

It does have a 5.4 user score on Metacritic, and the reviews marked as "most helpful" on Steam are mostly negative. I will say though that it surprises me the game is not rated lower on Steam given the Metacritic score. Probably related to the fact the game released before the introduction of Steam reviews, and most people unhappy with it never ended up leaving a review there.

Itch is predominantly a platform the indie dev scene and game journalists use, and that was the crowd that liked it.

From the other popular "walking simulator" games, the Stanley Parade seems to be the most well-received one.

> It does have a 5.4 user score on Metacritic

User scores on sites like Metacritic are completely useless in understanding how popular a game is or isn't.

Yes, it's pretty dishonest. The only serious modern game in the mix appears to be Bioshock, and it seems that the author didn't quite understand what Levine & Co were trying to convey about autonomy and agency with that work.

Why isn't Gone Home a serious game? It's a commercial success that was well-reviewed by critics and fans. It's even made by some of the same people as Bioshock.

Poor choice of words on my part; I mean to say that Gone Home, Dear Esther, Stanley Parable (which I feel is the best in this subgenre), etc., are not especially representative of video game narrative choices at large.

Thanks for clarifying! I agree that this article could have done a better job of distinguishing between the subgenre and games that use narrative more minimally.