It's cheaper (no need to buy supplies) so you can do things you'd never be able to afford IRL. Which also allows you to experiment with more things. This also lessens the consequences of failure.

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.