I think video games went from "fun for a while, but eventually you wanna stop and go ride bikes" to "wait, what do you mean it's Monday morning?" at or a little after the 16-bit console era. There were always people who could just play Super Mario 3 all day or that one guy who did nothing but play Doom for six months or whatever, but most kids (and certainly most adults) would knock it off after a while. It wasn't a widespread issue, even among the small segment of the population that played games, even if
some did have problems even then.
There was the occasional eat-your-life-for-weeks-on-end game but they tended to be confined to genres like 4x and RPGs (Ultima series, say) and you didn't see multiple high-quality works of that sort every single year. The other big exception was probably MUDs and other games where social, online multiplayer was a major component.
I think a combo of 1) refining and focusing games to drive "engagement", 2) games just getting better over time, in a lot of ways, 3) multiplayer and social elements becoming more common, and 4) digital distribution putting unlimited novelty at one's fingertips, has made the whole artform kinda scary, unless you stick strictly to shortish, tight single-player games. Or local multiplayer, I guess, since it's hard to binge that until 3AM on a regular basis, for obvious reasons. Leveling concepts, lengthy turn-based games, randomness of rewards, and online/social components are all especially dangerous.
Actually point 4 goes for most things, now. It's kinda too fast & easy to get... well, almost everything. I think there's a reason an unfettered will and easy gratification aren't usually things depicted as improving characters in fiction, for example, and often do the opposite.