[Precision due to a possible lost of translation effect:
Escapism is something temporary. You take a break in your life by reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game. But at the end of your break, you return back to your life ; it was a pleasant moment, but it's time to return to reality.
This while dreaming is something more sustainable. You don't project yourself into the story, you project the story into your life. What mean that, at the end of the story, you don't return to your life, a part of you stay in this story ; it's a pleasant moment that, one day, will happen to you for real.]
All of those are different vehicles for escapism. People spend all day, every usually slaving away for someone who's only paying you a fraction of their total profits. They swipe on Tinder only to be rejected by women on Tinder because they aren't big/rich/tall enough. They watch porn/play adult games because a lot of women have this unrealistic standard that men need to have six figures in their bank accounts and tall enough to dunk on someone before they even give them the time of day.
Perhaps am I too old, what make me being totally disconnected from nowadays young adults, but why can't they just stop chasing the impossible ?
When my wife died, I was 39yo, too young for celibacy, and with two children that still needed a woman in their life. After few months I started dating again. One month was enough to understand what girls would reject me because I'm not enough this, or too that, and so make me just ignore them ; I was in search of something real, not a girl craving for superficiality. It happened that I finally gave up after few adventures, but that's something unrelated to what I am, and more due to who I am ; someone still too deeply in love with his wife to have place for someone else.
And where you see escapism, what you wrote make me more think about dream enforcement. Those persons don't search to escape their reality, they try to reinforce their dreams ; "if this MC in the game I just played can have all the girls he want, I also can", and others "if this guy can become a celebrity by making some youtube videos, I also can".
People read because there's something different to explore beyond their 9 to 5. People watch TV so they can insert themselves into any life that isn't there own.
But do this really apply to adult games, where 90% of the time there's near to no effective story, and therefore nothing in what insert yourself, except the fact that the MC have an active sex life and isn't rejected ?
The MCs in those 90% don't live a life effectively different to ours, they just have sex with girls different to the ones we can get. And this again send back to the pursuit of a dream. Instead of stopping to chase the impossible, and try to match with average girls that wouldn't reject the average guy they are, they dream that the MILF next door ask them to clean her pool, and pay them with a wild sex session.
Obviously, this don't apply to everyone. There's people who play because they are in a lonely phase, and others that play because they like the story and want the spicy addition of the lewd. But yet it apply to too many if I believe the amount of "not enough sex"-like comments that can be found in game threads. Those persons don't just want to fap, porn videos would be way better for this, it's sex from start to stop and effective persons not pixels. No, they want the little plus, they want to fap with the impression that it's the reality. They aren't escaping their life, they are dreaming it. And the more they'll dream about this, the more they'll believe that it will happen one day, what make them continue chasing the impossible with even more strength.
Edit: Added the forenote regarding the possible translation issue.
