coming from past experience, not a lot of real life progress or numbers going up. Dead-end job, no creative hobbies, etc. Watching EXP go up and in-game goals be reached scratches the itch just enough for the habit to perpetuate itself, keep us hollow, destroy potential progress anywhere and everywhere else. And it's not easy to just get over or get rid of considering the literal hundreds of days worth of gametime people spend doing this is the perfect breeding ground for a lot of toxic brain/mindset wiring and psychological tumors to spawn - things like denial, especially. It eventually turns into what parallels a drug in a lot of ways whether people want to admit it or not. It's hard to dig yourself out, you don't remember what real life progress even feels like, nor real life relationships. You tell yourself "I'm doing what I enjoy, I only have one life" among a bunch of other justifications yet wonder why all that enjoyment hasn't lead to happiness, but instead just constant mild agitation, loneliness, etc. It's just addiction