Maybe you are paying the wrong kind of games?
I think online competitive games, like esports, only make you better at playing games, but other single player games are comparable artforms and only nominally "pointless wastes if time".
People have a tendency to apply a Puritan-esque attitude to games, assuming that less 'productive' (read: violent) games must also be less useful, and games that are more artsy, or revolve or around building (Minecraft), or are more abstract/less gamey (brain training games) must be more useful.
The reality is that people improve their cognitive abilities more when under more stress, when they're challenging themselves, not because the activity is more of an 'art form'. Repeatedly going to the opera may have other benefits, but it isn't going to make your brain compute any faster.
But the real good ones keep you engaged forever. That's the problem ;)
#1. The Witness, The Talos Principle, Her Story, Inside, Firewatch, Near Death, Event[0].
#2. Alien Isolation, SOMA, Grow Up.
#3. Furi, Thumper, DOOM 2016.
Why do I group them this way? #1 is "story/thinking", #3 is "immersion", #3 is "hard". I like games when they tell me stories (#1), much like a good movie. I enjoy the fact that being active in them contributes to making them sometimes even more immersive than a good movie (#2), and finally (and maybe this one is a bit closer to your feelings) I enjoy when they're so stupidly hard they make your heart pound when you've almost beaten this boss and gaaaaah no, dead again, retry (#3).
I'm not in any way trying to make you adhere to these categories (to each his own), just showing that games only have to be brainless dopamine-hit-based time-wasters if your let your choice of games make them so. The Witness is a remarkable adventure in learning and witnessing (gah) your own errors. Alien Isolation is the best Alien I've ever experienced in my body, regardless of medium. Firewatch is a human tale. Etc.
Remains the "they waste time" point. True, and so is watching a season of Black Mirror. On my side, I've
1. Come to peace with the fact that I'm not going to be 100% "productive" 100% of the time. All the time I played Witness was not spent learning Rust or taking an art course like yours. Alright.
2. Learned to consider what a game might bring to me and take from me before buying. I remain below a waste threshold (a. Bring/Take ratio too low, or b. Take obscenely high) by fleeing MMOs and CandyCrushes and rogue-likes and loot simulators like plague, and never ever chase coins/characters/achievements.
Can you expand on the kind of games you tried and why/how you consider single-player games boring?
The Witness is also having a huge influence on how I approach design, since pretty much everything communicated in the game is nonverbal.
Indeed. I'm playing FSX (Microsoft Flight Simulator X). It's teaching me how to fly... and it's actually lots of fun too.