At some point I figured out that solving technical problems is very much like a game. It’s more rewarding because you’re actually accomplishing something (more or less), as opposed to playing a game where it’s just other people making pointless challenges for you to overcome.

That’s a very different thing than people who play games for avoidance reasons. It’s well established that most things are “addictive” when doing that activity so often impacts one’s ability to function in other parts of life, like maintaining a job, relationship, etc.