Games are something of a different beast, at least at the time the article was written, in that they have a fixed 'end' point. After the game was shipped you didn't go back to fix things later, things would only be fixed when you were starting the sequel (or some other game) with that engine.

After all, what gets burned on a PS1 CD or PS2 DVD is permanent.

I'm sure that's at least somewhat different today with so many games having scheduled DLC and other updates that make the technical debt more unpalatable, although I'm sure such things still go on at a high rate.