I think it mostly depends on alignment, when it comes to fun > winning. As Scum of any kind you mostly *have* to put a lot of time and energy into it, if not in the thread directly, then certainly out of it. As Town maybe less so, that actually tends to be where most of the burnout comes from I believe.
Over time you end up getting something else out of it than just winning/losing, whether that be hanging out with people and making friends, debating without consequence or just keikaku'ing for the sake of it. Speaking personally, the worst parts were probably having a lot of time put into building up a community only for players to leave and have to start all over again.
OJ was a good example of this, but also seeing players really get into the game, and indirectly the Mafia we built up there lead and grow into this place, makes the good parts a lot better than the demotivating parts are bad.