Lately I mostly play Rocket League, which is mostly for social reasons (my friends dig it and live too far for me to hang out with), but is enough like a regular sport to have a sense of skill-building, competition and team cooperation.
The witness is sort of like a really fun math course that looks really pretty and teaches in a more interesting way. In real life I only occasionally get to solve interesting problems that I don't yet know the answer to. This scratches that itch in a way I have power over.
Undertale is an emotional story that I have agency in. It's one of my favorite examples of how game mechanics can enhance a traditional story.
Minecraft is a lot of things, but creativity and design are often front and center.
Writing this, I think a lot of games may be about experiencing things in a manner where people have more control than in 'real life'. It's also cheaper and faster than most hobbies. You can even get social status for being particularly skilled at games (see: twitch). Admittedly you probably won't make money playing games, but that's true of art, music, football, open source programming and most other hobbies.