Walk While My Grandmother Plays The Piano isn't a game, it's an art exhibition that's been dumped on Steam, presumably because the local art galleries took out a restraining order on the "artists" who had no other choice but to pay Valve $100 to dump this on Steam.
All you do in this short art piece is walk while music plays, and then you get told a sad story. It's not even a walking sim, it has no value as a real game for gamers. It doesn't matter the quality of the "story" here... this might as well be a Youtube video (and would probably make the developer some money from ad impressions). Instead, gamers have to try to filter out more non-game junk when looking for real games to play.
For those unfamiliar with what actually makes something a game, a "game loop" describes the interaction and feedback a gamer has when playing a game. Tetris, for example, has a game loop where a random block appears, the gamer interacts with the block to position it, and then the game decides if that finishes a row or not, increases the players score if any rows were completed, then gives the gamer another block to position. Counter-Strike has a game loop where a player seeks another player, tests their skill against that player by shooting them or being shot, the computer rewards the player if they win, and then if the player survives, they repeat that loop. There's no loop here, no true interactive feedback. It simply is not a game, it cannot be "played".
Dumping non-game software onto Steam like this isn't harmless, because it's pollution that genuine game developers who did the right thing have to compete against to get visibility for their games. It gives indie developers a bad name. It makes it harder for gamers to find those genuinely made indie games. It's harmful.
So, should you download this non-game art? Is this one of the best of the 110,000+ products on Steam?
Walk While My Grandmother Plays The Piano has no upfront cost, but just because something doesn't have a price tag doesn't mean it's valuable. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough. This isn't a game. It's impossible to recommend things which aren't games as games to gamers.
