I was the first kid in my school to complete Super Mario Bros. 3. Damn, I was proud... I was also a nerd, so this achievement was kept quiet for fear of beatings...
Anyway, the thing that made me play and play and play was the same reason that mountain climbers give - because it's there. I wanted to beat my score, to be better, to beat the machine. It was a challenge.
I've not RTFA yet... but if you ask me modern games are great, but they're a totally different a paradigm. Normally you play a game to the end, watch the FMV and say "cool". Rarely do you play the entire game again, there's no replay value in most of them. I'd say that MMOs and games like guitar hero are the closest to those old 2D platformers - you play the same game over and over to be better, just for the shear hell of it and nothing more.