Zachtronics is getting to roleplay the job I want to have instead of building enterprise CRUD apps. I get pride and self-worth from my Zachtronics work and money from my day job.

(I went into IT because I liked solving challenging problems, not because I wanted a lucrative career.)

Is it him that is seeing an asymptotic expression of work as games, or you who are seeing an expression of his games as work?

In other words, what's so bad about games looking like work, or work looking like a game, if they're deep, fun and engrossing? If the job or the game is terrible, discard it: maybe the real difference is we can't always discard the job because we need to survive.

I took one look at Zachtronics' TIS-100 and similar games and decided I'd rather learn actual ARM assembly language. At least I'd wind up with a usable real world skill at the end of it.