No, they demonstrate that games are not real life. And the people who play Animal Crossings are just a subset of real people.
In animal crossing, the player doesn't feel the characters cold, hunger, head aches, sleep deprivation or flue.
The player doesn't really experience the dreadful responsibility for a kid not to die, the requirement to fill forms, queue with irritated people, be stuck in traffic or the sub every day, etc.
And above that, the interactions are in this context. Nobody tries to hit on your girlfriend who you built your life with, no divorce can take half of your house, no firing send you back to your country because your visa depend on it. You don't have an asshole boss, an entitled customer, an asshole clerk or a depressed librarian.
Prosperity is easier when things are predictable, you have low risk and people are homogeneous. E.G: it's easier to live as a Swiss in your own country than as Tunisian refugee in china.
You don’t have to go find the shovels, mulch, scrap cardboard, whatever. Maybe craft a shovel, but that may take less time than walking to the garage. It’s a minute or less to reach the spot you want to plant it. You will not dig and hit a big rock and have to relocate, or have to worry about hitting utilities. The tree’s roots will not trash your sidewalk if you plant it in the wrong place. The tree will not fail to grow.
“Work” in video games is rarely anything at all like real life “work”, even before you layer on workplace bureaucracy and regulations and stuff. There’s no mess, no danger, (generally) no actual costs, and usually you can’t really screw it up, and if you do, there are no actual consequences. Stuff like travel times or how long it takes to do boring tasks are usually compressed.
Don't these people either have much less or work much harder (alone) by opting out?
By my significant other's standards, I was very lazy in Animal Crossing... all I wanted to do was plant flowers. They wanted to build a neighborhood and collect all the furniture. I didn't grind as much, but I also wanted less.