We also wouldn't get games like Goat Simulator who basically set a low expectation bar in exchange for low cost, best effort game play. I'm kind of ok with more "garbage" if we also get more weird/low budget games that wouldn't exist otherwise.
...which is still true today. It's common that large titles take 4+ years in development if they're not built on an existing game's engine and actually release in a finished state. Activision was able to release a new CoD every year because they cycled through 3 studios of which each had 3 years time for a game that's mostly a mod of the previous one with slight improvements to the underlying tech. And even then it's now almost expected that it'll take another 3+ months to get in a state that the game was meant to be released in.
> only cover a thousandth of the ground current games cover
That may be true if you go back to the Atari era, but even ~30 years old RPGs can still hold up well in terms of content. It's great that now we don't always need publishers to create & ship games and can release updates online, but that's no excuse to sell incomplete products.
Things are way different now.
The CD also had a folder named "updates and patches" where you could find installers for the latest bug fixes of the most popular MacOS software.
CDs bundled with monthly magazines was a valid conduit for getting patches to users at the time.
And if you have VR, Pavlov has been the most fun I have ever had gaming. It looks like a CSGO clone on the surface but it becomes the most absurd/surreal experience ever with custom maps. It's almost like playing laser tag in one of those optical illusion room of mirrors type attractions.
Updates can be issued, but it increasingly means that things are released in a state where updates NEED to be issued
What seems to happen is people want the game as soon as possible but also complain when it isn't perfect on release but overall they enjoy playing it sooner more than they are bothered by its lack of polish.