Are video games actually fun? I used to spend a lot of time playing, until I had an epiphany and realized that it was more like working an unpaid part-time job. I was playing because I sort of felt obligated to reach the next level or finish the campaign or whatever, but I wasn't actually enjoying it and no one else cared about my achievements. So, I just quit and never looked back.
Definitely playing the wrong games, imho. I've been an avid gamer in one form or another since the late 1980's and a game design trend that's really been put on steroids in the last 10-20 years is designers getting a lot more sophisticated about creating feedback loops that drive you to put in that one more hour (or ten more dollars) for that incremental hit of dopamine. There is a type of game that is very specifically engineered to get you to play as much as possible for increasingly incremental rewards. World of Warcraft was my own first exposure to this philosophy of game design and they had me hook, line and sinker.
On the other hand you have games which are designed almost like an art piece or a one-and-done thing where you experience what the designer intended and then you're done. For instance it's an old game but take Battle Chess for instance, you buy it, you play it for like an hour and it's chess with extra cool animation and art. Great, now when you want to play chess, you crack open Battle Chess, and when you don't want to play chess anymore you close it. A lot of indie games and adventure games still have this philosophy where it's more about delivering a high quality good experience that is finite, not stretching everything out to infinity.
>I had an epiphany and realized that it was more like working an unpaid part-time job
I've had the reverse epiphany: That if I view aspects of my real life that seem difficult to make progress on as being more like a computer game, I can increase my motivation to tackle them.
Couldn’t that argument be used with a lot of hobbies?
I think for most people it’s like interactive light television watching. Not great to do it obsessively but it can be relaxing and/or mentally stimulating.
As someone who played on a Switch for a significant time (mostly Zelda and Mario games) and then transitioned back to PC games, I'm going to guess that by "video games for Xbox, Playstation and PC", you mean the big tentpole titles. Just within that frame of reference, I would agree. However, most of my playtime on PC is in indies, and those are just as fun as Nintendo games if you know where to look. For recommendations, look at the winners and nominees of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. (Wikipedia has the list.) Most of the PC games that I had the most fun with (and also the most significant emotional response) happen to be on that list.
I also had this realization. Part of it was that after a point, games stop being novel. I used to like playing with legos, but building a set just feels like a chore. These days, I'm doing a lot of ice skating, and what I like is the feeling of learning something new.
Video games make way more money then Hollywood. I mean not to be insulting but it's like asking the question are movies actually entertaining?
There's also many different genres of video games like there are movies and each genre scratches a different itch. The itch you're describing is sort of a "leveling up" goal oriented genre.
That's not the only genre. For example what's the purpose of VR? How does it help with "leveling up" or getting to the next "campaign"? The whole point of VR is immersion.
Too many people view gaming from a biased corner from their own little niche interest without realizing how big the industry is.
Maybe I was just playing the wrong games.