Maybe I was just playing the wrong games.
On the other hand you have games which are designed almost like an art piece or a one-and-done thing where you experience what the designer intended and then you're done. For instance it's an old game but take Battle Chess for instance, you buy it, you play it for like an hour and it's chess with extra cool animation and art. Great, now when you want to play chess, you crack open Battle Chess, and when you don't want to play chess anymore you close it. A lot of indie games and adventure games still have this philosophy where it's more about delivering a high quality good experience that is finite, not stretching everything out to infinity.
I've had the reverse epiphany: That if I view aspects of my real life that seem difficult to make progress on as being more like a computer game, I can increase my motivation to tackle them.
I think for most people it’s like interactive light television watching. Not great to do it obsessively but it can be relaxing and/or mentally stimulating.
Rarely for Xbox, Playstation, and PC, but frequently for Nintendo. Mario Kart with friends is a certified hoot.
There's also many different genres of video games like there are movies and each genre scratches a different itch. The itch you're describing is sort of a "leveling up" goal oriented genre.
That's not the only genre. For example what's the purpose of VR? How does it help with "leveling up" or getting to the next "campaign"? The whole point of VR is immersion.
Too many people view gaming from a biased corner from their own little niche interest without realizing how big the industry is.