How many of those people do have intellectual potential that they waste in Factorio or Eve Online? How many of those people ended there because they played games? And how many started gaming because they were fed up with their lack of potential?

Maybe majority of gamers would been the type who would waste themself in a pub or on some other meaningless thing otherwise? I don't think it's so easy to answer those aspects without hard numbers.

Hard to know!

Are gamers just a holding pattern for society, because we have passed peak employment - and just need to keep a chunk of society busy doing "nothing" ?

Yeah, I'm blown away when I watch videos of people smashing Dark Souls 3 while almost never dying. Then I think of the 2000+ hours it must have taken to achieve that level of muscle memory and expertise.

Then again, they are making money with their Twitch streams and walkthroughs simply by being Souls experts. So who am I to say they are wasting anything?

I'm glad to see you're doing something more productive with your time.

Hey hobbies are great. Everyone needs hobbies.

I don't live with my parents so I can post on hacker news.

Of course. How convenient that you're the exception.