[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I think it is more or less like you said - such things come and fade. It was similar with me, I have played my fair share of games (different ones, not necessarily just fantasy and medieval), but gradually I came to that I am more of a "subcreator", as Tolkien puts it. And in his overall philosophy "every human is essentially a (sub)creator" - as expressed in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" or in "Leaf by Niggle", and less explicitely, I believe, everywhere throughout his works (e.g. Silmarillion - of Aulë and the Dwarves etc.) - he is right, at least in my case (and in the case of like-minded people who are writers and artists, including various object-makers like woodcarvers and the more technician-types; even computer programmers, I believe); but I think actually everyone would affirm that the creative potential and the wish to create something is inside all of us. So, if that is a general human trait, it is only logical that eventually you will desire to actually create something instead of sitting and "receiving".

Of course, with the games, even when I used to play them more often I did my own creative things during my free time, writing, planning tabletop RPGs etc. Actually, now thinking of it, even with the PC games, I liked it the most when the game had a map editor of its own or something like that. In the beginning it was actually the most important thing for me there, and I never quite left that point of view either. Only when some games were too difficult/impossible to edit, I have abandoned that thought.

That said, I still like to play every now and then. But it is in rather specific instances. Games are good for relaxation, and the advantage of those computer ones is that they are relatively complex and you can play them basically anytime whenever you don't have anybody around to spend time with. I think that's the point - otherwise, you can of course as easily play something with your friends real-life. The online games don't satisfy me much more than the "single" ones, because even if you are playing that with your friends, they usually are just another bunch of pixels over there. When we tried to make some online session with my friends, it was usually for the fun of it, i.e. we did it because we wanted to play a particular computer game online with each other there. When we wanted to just play something together, we had our long-time-existing tabletop RPGs, which give you far more freedom to create and develop your character than just a predefined skill tree, equipment and a few basic gestures do - we could effectively make our characters the way we wanted, to the very last detail in their personality.