I understand what the author was trying to say (I think), but it is a jarringly bad representation of theories of history.
It wasn’t a review that I would expect to make it into an academic journal, certainly, but it is way more sophisticated than what you usually see written on or about historical videogames.
You picked up a bit of a straw man there too, like comparing bleeding with leeches to penicillin as a treatment for appendicitis. A more nuanced choice would have been to contrapose E. O. Wilson and S. J. Gould.