I do both of these things a fair amount IRL, I'm not trying to single you out I just want to understand motivations for playing these games, is there a reason you do these activities in a game as opposed to IRL?
No spiderwebs on your face. No biting and/or disease-carrying insects. No oppressive humidity. No getting soaked by a sudden rainstorm. No sunburns. No twisting an ankle and having a horrible time getting back out. No taking a wrong turn and ending up having to go much farther than you'd counted on, to get back.
Much or all of the game world may be crafted to be interesting. Even very nice natural areas have boring bits, and you can't fast-travel past them.
You can do it even if you're injured, or tired.
If the game has tasks, they usually have far faster reward loops than their real-life equivalents. The real-life versions might have more clean-up or mess. You have to actually physically do a bunch of stuff where the game might have a button press. You also have to know how to do it, and have the tools (if any) to do it. This is why obsessive players of games that feature gardening or farming usually don't become avid hobby-gardeners in real-life.
I don't want to become like the girl in the latest blade runner who only lives in her room.
Video games have faster feedback loop compared to real life. You progress and get rewards much faster. For example, I could finish an entire growing season in one long evening of playing. And it's not just scaling time. The tasks themselves are simplified to balance complexity, difficulty, and fun. You only have a handful of tools that never break. You don't have to worry about plant diseses, pests, droughts, floodings, or freezing temperatures in spring. The only thing you need to manage is watering (which you have an infinite supply of) and crows (which are repelled with a scarecrow).
The barriers of entry are lower too. There are games that let you drive a truck of fly a plane; things which would be prohibitively expensive in real life.
You can do the activity when there's free time (like at night) with no real planning.
You can put the task down for months on end without negative results because time is constrained to the game world. Or put another way, constant upkeep tasks and their results can be perfectly saved.
Game worlds can be tightly controlled if you wish it. Reality is uncontrollable.
After a very brief taste of Elder Scrolls Online I realized I really, really dislike when game time rules seep too much into real life and start contaminating my schedule.
Nowadays I can't stand even the simplest habit-forming daily rewards loop of mobile games.
I won’t make moralistic judgements on which is better, but I will say all else equal, a lot of people prefer physical passivity.
On the other hand, it only takes about five minutes to boot a game and be walking the PNW.