Yes, no joke. When I played X-Com in 1999 and read “entertainment computer: useless to aliens, we’ll use it to revolutionize computing” I honestly thought “no, never, servers are the future”.
The games aren’t exactly “degenerate”, but close enough. Same with cars, it’s always the wagon that drives innovation. I guess the industry is a bit exempt from this with steel, but when you think that most polymers were designed for useless throwaway trinkets sold cheaply to people who don’t need them… raise your ugly head
If people had stuck to the spartan use of technology, I’m not sure we would have ever made it out of the Bronze Age. Even today, throw in a bit of aluminum here, some cast iron there, some 5160 over there, a couple of M4 bits, wham bam thanks ma’am and we’re done.