As smaller, less popular examples, how about Baseball? Football? Soccer? All of these are less popular games than Chess or Go, but still have a very large, healthy, and unwavering following. Why haven't they been swept away by the tides of technological progression? Heck, most people don't even play these games, they just watch them, and they still prefer it.
Graphics/complexity/technology have nothing to do with a game's popularity or staying power. It may have something to do with a game's ability to exist (for example, Super Mario Brothers couldn't exist pre-1900), but doesn't actually make any game more fun than they other -- history clearly shows it.
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