OP, you may find this blogpost interesting. I don't suggest it mirrors your situation but it may provide useful additional insight.
chocoluvva: How do they know though? How do they know that they love Shakespeare/ inorganic chemistry/Georgian architecture/whatever if they haven't been exposed to it?
Autonomously HE children do get exposed to a lot of stuff. (And let's leave aside that there is a vast store of the world's knowledge that English schoolchildren are never introduced to.)
If the OP's DS was in school to Y6, then he may well have learned that he doesn't love any of that stuff. This often happens because school is not content to expose children to a variety of interesting things. Instead, it spoils books by saying they must be the subject of a book report. You cannot go to the theatre without doing loads of other things around it.
As stated upthread, schools provide a broad and balanced curriculum; by definition, it's not "suitable" for any one child. It is not suitable for the 6yo who wants to do algebra or for the 10yo who has just "got" reading.
OP has not given enough info for any of us to say anything specific about her son's difficulties. However we can talk about our own experiences.
If a child is not academic and is going to go on and do a manual or semi-skilled job, how does it help them to spend several years having to go to classes that they are expected to fail? Would it not be better for them to have an enjoyable childhood and then have the confidence to do a lower skilled job, not having learnt that they are likely to fail at whatever they do?
OTOH, if they are academic, then they are likely to be able to gain qualifications when they are ready. SatinSandals mother didn't manage it (in the 1930s) but that is one person in a very different culture from today's - we don't know what help she had or what else was going on in her life. It is clearly untrue to suggest that you cannot learn as a teen/adult unless you have "been in the lessons and taken it all in" - many people learn a second language as an adult to which they had no exposure in childhood (given that English schools generally "teach" a very small subset of languages and not all of those to all pupils, the chances of people not having had exposure in school is very high). The Open University is predicated on people with no school qualifications being able to work to degree-level largely on their own while holding a job.
SatinSandals son's AS may give some insight but it does not generalise. My DS had his first day in "school" at 18 when he went to do A-level maths and AS physics in one year to support a university application. He had had no classroom lessons or homework ever prior to that. His previous formal maths education consisted of only the Open University's bottom-level course, which is roughly GCSE level and which he had completed over a year before starting the A-level. He had done no formal physics at all. He achieved the A grade in maths that he needed and has just started Engineering Maths at a Russell Group uni.
It could be (but we are in no position to guess unless the OP chooses to share additional information) that the OP's DS will suddenly decide that he wants to aim for a specific career (and it is not a failure if he does NOT do medicine). Only the OP and her son can negotiate this. Personally, I would put a minimum of requirements on him (related to living together - things like being involved in housework) and tell him that his future is in his own hands - he knows that all these things are available and that the OP can help him access it. I'd still offer things but with no pressure to participate. I'd also try to make sure that I was learning something new (which could include WoW).
My experience is that realisation of the need to become a self-supporting adult arrives later in boys.
At 13, my (autonomously HE from birth) DD wanted to do nothing constructive. I chose to say that that was her responsibility: if she decided not to get qualifications and therefore to ensure she was qualified only for jobs that require no particular skill, that was up to her. At 15, she decided she wanted to be a lawyer (thank you, Ian Dowty at HESFes!). She graduated this summer with a 2:2 LLB from Exeter (but no longer wanting a career in law) and is now on a 5-week TESOL course with the intention of travelling and teaching English. Prior to university, she had taken no school exams exams and had studied at home (OU courses, only one with an exam). She spent 1 term in an English Y5 class and about 6 months in a German secondary at 13. She also had not ""been in the lessons and taken it all in".
OTOH, my DS at 15 was saying "how did DD know what she wanted to do?" - he had no idea and no real sense that he would have to become independent. At 17, it was starting to click but not early enough for him to be able to apply to university to start at 18 (he is an August birthday).
None of this may be relevant to the OP and I hope she has support IRL. However, it is simply untrue to say that 11-13 years of formal education (or even 5 years of exam preparation) is necessary. My advice is always to work backwards - know what you want to do and then see what you need to be able to get there. If you don't know, then at 12-16, enjoy yourself. If a young person is using gaming to shut out the world for an extended time, then that would be worrying. If it is his main interest and his other behaviour is fine, then it would not be.
In the OP's position, I'd probably want to negotiate that he does one other activity (chosen by him) per week. Even if that were to be going to Game Workshop and taking part in a tabletop gaming session. I'd hope (silently) that that would lead to a widening of his interests. At 12, I'd be surprised if he had the maturity to consider the effect on his adult life.
