Would you say the same if someone played 1000 hours of a sport?
Different benefits and downsides.
Of course, a lot of guys are suckered into sports-related gambling these days too.
Don't be so close-minded; playing games is not different from any other activity.
Playing football or lacrosse is more "real" than working a desk job. For thousands of years, humans had to hunt and make tools and relied on their wits and strength to survive. Survival in the modern day is mostly a question of obedience.
I think the purpose of exploring virtual worlds like quake or counter-strike or something should not be to escape the real world but rather to experience a new kind of physicality. The purpose of playing games should be to engage in a deeper world which is more "real" than the tame one we are ordinarily subjected to.
It's why I am not opposed to video games. I opposed to overplaying video games because you ruin them, they become mundane and predictable.
One may say you make social bonds playing them, but that stands true for video game as well. Speaking for myself, I definitely spent more than 1000 hours on summoner's rift; 15 years later me and my league friends still playing LOL together and chat about all kind of things on a daily basis.