Community can go a long way towards compensating for worse technology, yeah.

Community is the entire goal. The technology just has to meet some minimum threshold. You know any 13 year olds playing Minetest?

My kids are younger than that and play Minetest/Luanti all the time. They are well aware of Minecraft but are completely engrossed by the modding first approach of Luanti.

I don't know any 13-year-olds, but I hear that a lot of them do play Minetest.