lol! Stellaris can be played on a laptop, but try ramping the Galaxy size up to 1000 and/or increase the habitable planet multiplier. You get a couple hundred years in and the game just crawls even on nice hardware. Its not unplayable, its a strategy game, but the pace definitely slows down a lot, and space battles aren't as fun to watch.

By the same token you can play virtually any game on a cheap gaming rig. Just put all the graphics on low, run it at 720p and be happy with 20 fps.

Most games don't need the latest or greatest hardware to run well, there's a lack of good AAA games that make the value proposition of new hardware much less appealing versus the days of wanting to build a computer to play Crysis.

Endgame Factorio stresses CPUs because rocket-per-minute bases are a thing.

1 RPM is where a mega base starts. Stronger players can do 20 RPM (yes, a rocket every 3 seconds).

In those conditions, your CPU becomes the limit to the RPM as your game starts to slow down

> Stellaris can be played on a laptop. You are confirming his conclusion that they don't need a strong CPU to play.

Movies can be watched on phones. Does that mean theater screens are pointless?

Just look at the attendance of movies or how often phones are used for videos.