Human beings vary in all kinds of ways, more than we generally expect, right down to the nature of our most fundamental fears and desires. Not everyone wants to have children, in the way that you do, and some people clearly want not to.

I doubt that anyone would prefer gaming to children because they hold gaming in the kind of profound esteem you feel for the task of "raising a literal human child"; more likely, they simply don't feel much of anything about having kids, or perhaps they feel some aversion. It's not hard for even a comparatively trivial activity you enjoy to feel more appealing than an alternative you don't actually desire.

I agree; as someone who was _very_ into gaming at different periods of my life. Both gaming and travelling struck me as things young adults do to pass the time when they don’t have the privilege and responsibility of a family.

I understand procrastination for sure, but the idea that someone would avoid having kids to do the above is absolutely bizarre to me.

Please don't take it as a personal attack, but you're 28 and from the way you're talking, it sounds like kids are not a priority for you right now, so apparently you want to do certain things before getting them. Many people who end up child-less are just like you - they don't actively decide "I'd rather game than have children", they just make excuses and postpone until it just doesn't work out at all.

One thing which I kind of regret about having children relatively late in my life (although I wasn't that much older when I had my first than you are now) is that I won't be there for them (and potentially grandchildren) as long as I wish I would be, esp. in good health. A depressing way to think about this is that every year I've enjoyed the freedom before them is a year I'm not going to spend with them.

You’re sort of begging the question that the second thing is really desirable. You accurately describe the experience, but that doesn’t necessarily make it something people want.