I think that generally, you "get" more out of playing videogames than doomscrolling on Twitter, or mindlessly watching your YouTube recommendations. Can depend on the game for sure, but video games usually have some artistic merit and require your actual focus and attention, rather than allowing to be completely braindead. They might not be a "productive" use of your time, but at least it's more intellectually stimulating than some of the stuff we do online.
Although, if you're spending most of your time actually interacting with people, especially friends, then I think it's much less of a waste of your time.
If one addiction is bad enough, using something less addicting to break the cycle can be effective. If, for example, an hour of video games a day breaks a dopamine chain that keeps an hour a day of phone time from turning into four hours a day, it's still a net positive.
That's assuming they find games hyper-stimulating. Personally I can count the number of hours I spent last month playing video games on one finger - even though I used to play 30+ hours of video games a week in school - because it doesn't reward the long term investment circuit anymore. HN on the other hand? That's "career development."
I'm curious why switching from scrolling Instagram/communicating with friends on WhatsApp should be "frowned upon" (this is what comes to my mind personally when I hear the words "phone addiction) if the alternative is to trade it with something even more hyper-stimulating, like a video game.
If the post this week is "how can I be less addicted to my phone", and you replace your phone with video games, won't the post next week just be "how can I be less addicted to video games"?