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Yup, being an enormous time sink it's one of my major gripes with the game.

I guess it is also what makes it one of the most hardcore games in existence... Right next to OGame

I've never played EVE Online, but that is a not because I don't want to. It's basically the game I dreamed about as a kid. And I know if I play, I will want to win, but you can't win, you can only dominate; by investing lots and lots of time. People say I'm not missing much because it's a spreadsheet in space. Unfortunately that sounds right up my alley. I love games where I can find tiny optimizations and compound them into an unchallengeable force. But if I have the time to build a space empire, I have the time to build a new startup empire in real life, which I don't.

> I will want to win, but you can't win, you can only dominate

It is common for EVE players to refer to quitting as "winning EVE". I won EVE around 7 years ago after falling 800-hours-in-6-months deep into the optimisation black hole you describe and realising it was immensely fun but unsustainable.

>I have the time to build a new startup empire in real life, which I don't.

Real life doesn't work that way, you will first have to work 20 years under the previous emperor.

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