Minecraft; I look a little into life-consuming games

I just spent 4 hours on Minecraft. My brother bought it, gave me the password. I started my own world. It wasn’t even on survival; I just dicked around on creative mode for 4 hours. Found magma, underground rivers, deep dungeons, and I also found out about the void under it all.
I usually play video games. Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Resident Evil, Legend of Zelda, sometimes games like Super Smash or Doctor Mario. These games enter my life and I find myself engrossed in them for a little while. Only priorities like eating or sleeping can peel me away from the TV. This usually isn’t detrimental though; I can be finished playing these games within 2 or 3 days, either because I’ve beat them or I’m bored with them.
Then a game like Minecraft comes along; a game that prides itself on thousands of options, hours of building and roaming and surviving and playing. In one 4 hour sitting, I’ll have scratched the surface of what the game has to offer, and I probably won’t be done with the game for hundreds of hours more. Games like the Assassin’s Creed franchise (1, 2, and 3 only) or anything by Bethesda also do this to me. First Fallout 3, then a short relationship with Oblivion (still many hours of my life gone), then New Vegas, then Skyrim. I’ve probably literally lost a year to the 7 games combined.
It makes me wonder where it comes from. I’m not the only one who lives in games like this. Thousands of people are lost in games like World of Warcraft, Maplestory, Runescape, and yes, Minecraft, Skyrim, and New Vegas. Star Wars: The Old Republic is probably stealing people from their lives as we speak, and will become a massive force in that regard within the next year.
What causes people to cast themselves entirely into virtual worlds? No matter what the individual motives are, I believe everyone does it to escape something in their lives. Some people may do it to escape their constantly depressing realities. Others may do it to escape their mundane and routine lives. Maybe it comes in waves, and they only engross themselves when they're angry or sad or alone. Me? I always justify myself by saying I want a good story, but they're never really good enough to hold up my justification. More likely, I play when I'm alone or bored in order to distract myself, and the overwhelming irony is that the time away from friends and family makes me more alone, more bored, and more likely to continue playing.
The cycle continues.