Aardvaarkman said:
Is this really anymore prevalent today than it was in the past?
I've skimmed through most of the posts, but it seems like people missed the biggest point:
In the past you almost always needed a publisher to release a game. This publisher acted as quality control to some degree and with the industry crash it was no longer profitable (or even possible, after console manufacturers banned publishers if they abused their trust) to release broken games.
Now we have self-publishing and small publishers who release whatever they can to make a quick buck, as Steam (just like the Xbox Indie Arcade) doesn't care what is sold through their market. Is it worse than before? Maybe not, but that was the infancy of the video games market. We don't need to revert to those times, especially not now that everyone and their dog can create a game that barely works and release it online for minimal (or no) investment. It gets even worse when Early Access is flooded with broken "games" who get away with it because "they might be good eventually", making the average consumer expect games to be like that.