It's very bizarre to me how some of these arguments are framed because it's as if some people have never experienced the joy of winning, or the sense of fulfillment that comes with learning or progressing ones own skills. It has little to do with stats, other than stats being an indicator that you're progressing. Like did you guys play sports? Have you ever experienced the pure elation of trying your hardest at something and succeeding? Because for a lot of us, this is what it means to play multiplayer games and in particular esports.
You say multiplayer games feel hollow, I say the vast majority of single player games feel hollow - progressing fake skills and stats, interacting with NPC's, completing meaningless fictional stories one after the other. That to me is the definition of a throwaway experience. I'd rather progress my own skills, interact and create friendships with real people, and create my own stories through the interactions with the game and the community. I had a real epiphany one day after loading up an Elder Scrolls game, looking at my fully decked out character and completed world map, and realizing it was utterly for nothing, all meaningless and contained within a fictional game world.
I still play single player games once in a blue moon, I just have no pretensions about it being anything but a waste of time that I can hopefully glean some enjoyment from. In the back of my mind, I'm always thinking I could be practicing and learning something else. Occasionally a game will come along (like Nier:Automata for example) where the story has a profound impact on me. And for that I'm grateful and I feel it was worth it. But that's few and far between. If someone is chasing that experience, there are works of literature that could last a lifetime, all FAR superior that what's going on in the latest AAA exclusive like GoW.
