Well, I think that's a bit pessimistic.

I think every Msc student at a "no-name" german university has the chance to publish a paper at a top-tier conference. Student research assistant jobs are plenty and the Msc Thesis can be real-science. Every Msc. CS program here I know has a research-option so that instead of lecture you can do research. It's just hard to publish in those top-tier conferences and most research is more applied (and therefore more niche!) so its not easy to find an advisor for this. But in my experience even if the professor is working in a more applied setting you can push for a more basic-research, research is research. But you can do a phd here without publishing a paper first, so I don't think most Msc Students see it as a priority.