I've always found that an unfair comparison. Unlike real life, games are designed for you to become awesome. In games, you have nearly infinite agency for reaching your goals and the only thing hold you back is either time or willpower, but games are created in such a way that you want to spend time in them and to minimize the willpower needed to complete tasks.

Getting new armor that looks cooler in Guild Wars (for example) can be easily broken down into simple, manageable tasks that have very little chance of failing. A similar task in real life (say, buying an expensive suit) has a lot more complications. If you want I could break that distinction down step by step.