[peytoncasper]

I disagree with your interpretation of OP's comment. Sure you can argue that playing a video game can be addictive to some people. But game developers are not getting addicted to playing the games they make.

Creating a video game is probably as close as you can get in the software space to art. It's the culmination of hundreds of different skills into a single package that has the off chance to shift and affect culture across the globe. Its exciting, and has the potential to fill someone who works on it with an intense amount of pride. That, in my opinion is not addiction.

Unless you consider artists, musicians, designers, actors and hundreds of others who work in purely creative mediums, addicts.

There is a lot to be proud of by shipping something that is used by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people and especially more so if it makes people happy. It's that intangible feeling of creating and seeing it successful that keeps people working in the video game industry despite the very obvious downsides.

For a lot of people, it's attempting to create something for players that fills them with as much emotion as they once experienced playing another game.