Crafting in most video games have little involvement beyond putting ingredients together with a couple of clicks. It's not interesting itself; it's a just a means of acquiring things that might be otherwise scarce or unavailable in shops or random loot.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. I disagree. They may be mechanically incomparable, but both are things that people will do either because they need something they can't buy, or because they enjoy the inherent reward of creation. The way this stuff is portrayed in games is daft, but making a table is most definitely something that one ordinary person can do with only commonly available materials and tools. I think more people should do it too.