That's an extremely interesting observation.
I've had a similar thought regarding mecha games and their relationship to mecha toys while playing MAF/MUF.
It struck me one day while playing MUF, that games like MAF/MUF are not just mecha games, but in effect give us virtual toys of our favorite mecha, but at a far lower cost in terms of both money and storage space.
In MUF for example, we can have nearly every single VF from every Macross anime, that we can fly, fight with, view from different angles, customize the color schemes etc., in a far more realistic manner than simply holding the physical toy in our hand and zooming it around.
At 196 hours on MAF and currently 224 hours on MUF, I'm spending far more time with these virtual Valks than I have been with my physical toys and I have noticed my desire to buy new toys does seem to be reduced, (although to be fair there may be other contributing factors to this as well).
Something to think about though.
Graham