>>508864161Games can sometimes be more beautiful than real life but even so, they're not real. You cannot smell a virtual forest, you cannot be surrounded by it, you cannot feel the soil beneath your feet.
If you could teleport irl, would you really take a walk in a virtual forest rather than instantly appear in a real one of your choice and just go for a hike, feeling the wind in your face, hearing the birds sing, the river flowing calmly, seeing the mountains on the horizon?
If it was as easy as that I think few people would play video games, or not quite as often at least. But the reality is that real life is inconvenient in comparison.
Travel takes time and money and the real world can be difficult or even dangerous. Video games are vastly more convenient.
Of course, video games also offer a (false) sense of purpose where you are an important person who must make important decisions for the good of all. This is far harder to replicate irl where almost no one is put into a position of power, and even if you were, would you be happy about it?
I also think that video games are great fun as they offer a chance at simulating those one in a million opportunities that almost none of us ever get to experience in reality. But even then, it's still just simulations, they are supposed to prepare you for real life. If you shut out the real world then the simulations lose their meaning.