I wasn't talking about the specific example in the article. There are many, many other ways in which numeric characteristics can constrain game design, particularly if your game has any kind of scale to it (say, simulations with tons of moving parts or many NPCs, like RCT, or large open worlds like Minecraft, or large multiplayer games like WoW, as examples all mentioned in the thread).

If your game is small-scale, something like Super Mario Bros., you should be able to get away with not thinking about it in theory. But even then people manage to write simple games with bloated loading times and stuttery performance, so never underestimate the impressive ability of people who are operating solely at the highest level of abstraction to make computers cry.