Games at the press of a button: The Rip-O-Bot (1989)
blog.gingerbeardman.com
blog.gingerbeardman.com
The fact is the 90s was riddled with derivatives, where every cartoon character had a derivative side-scroller of varying quality. The scale of a cartridge game grew enough that just changing animation quality, physics, attack methods, and level design was enough to make the Aladin side-scroller a different enough experience from the Lion King side-scroller that a customer would be satisfied by both purchases.
I'd say we have lived in the world MTJ predicted since this was written, but innovation and quality were hardly ever buried by rip-o-bot churn. Even today, I'd consider the "slop" genres ($5 co-op games, stream-worthy horror projects) to be healthy ecosystems where the cream typically rises to the top.
That said, I think your point is a good one, it's just a different type of churn. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same) as they say in France.
So...basically everything about the game but the genre?
But there is some boundary line on the level of effort where a game becomes its own thing. Fortunately for the industry, the number of parameters that can be "tweaked" grew exponentially with each console generation.
Fact of the matter is, games are already extremely accessible and have incredible, free productivity tools. It's been that way for a while. You know what mass democratization of gamedev has resulted in? Mostly just a flood of low rent survival games, roguelite deck builders, puppetcombo-esque horror games, etc.