The best selling game of all time is relatively recent and supremely hackable/mod-friendly. It also contains gameplay elements that simulate electricity and logic gates. People have built computers in-game.
Minecraft
Minecraft
many of them play minecraft but as far as I'm aware it's entirely on tablets.
Granted the vanilla experience offers lots of exploration and creativity beyond nearly anything I grew up with but it's still not the same feeling of roguish discovery described by the article.