Any accomplishment can roughly be divided into entertainment and knowledge. However, entertainment is a temporary, short-term gain, whereas knowledge is long-term and builds upon itself. Playing Runescape is hugely about entertainment. You play Runescape and feel entertained, but once you log off you don't maintain that level of being entertained - you drop back down to some 'base level', per se. Yes, you gain knowledge while playing Runescape as well - skill training methods, lore, and other inner mechanics - but this sort of knowledge is not perceived by society as important or necessary to increase your standards of living and thus has a very low social value. Let's look at another example. What about watching sports games? Watching sporting events is hugely about entertainment as well. However, there is a key difference between watching sports and playing Runescape - the value of knowledge. Since watching sports is much more socially popular than Runescape, the value of knowledge gained by watching sports is higher than it is for playing Runescape. You can use knowledge of sports and sports games that you watch to build new friendships and connect with your existing friends. This helps increase your social presence and develop connections that definitely can increase your standards of living. Yes, obviously, it doesn't add that much value, since sports games are mainly about entertainment, but it still adds more value than Runescape. (e.g. it's more likely you'd strike up a conversation with your boss/coworkers/peers/etc about last night's football game than the mechanics of training Fishing.. the only place where that might not be true is if you work at Jagex). Now, finally, using your own original example of developing an indie game - if you truly enjoy the development of the game then obviously you're getting entertainment, but developing a game is clearly more about knowledge than entertainment (i.e. there are people who develop games that don't necessarily enjoy doing it). The entertainment you get out of it is just a bonus. (that's why people whose work also is their passion are often viewed as lucky!) Those years spent developing that game cultivated your programming knowledge and experience. Even if the game is a commercial failure, you still gain a significant amount of social advantage. (e.g. a game developing company would rather hire someone with a published game and years of experience rather than someone with no experience whatsoever). To summarize: accomplishments are more about knowledge than entertainment. Entertainment is fleeting - you feel entertained in the moment but once you log off you don't maintain that level of being entertained. Knowledge, however, is long-term and can give you distinct social advantages. Runescape's value of knowledge gain is very low and thus playing Runescape may be perceived as pointless or a waste of time.
