While I see and understand your point, I don't really approve it from a game dev point of view. (Disclaimer: not a game dev, only a software dev)
And this applies whether the game dev has a publisher or not. Wasting huge amounts of resources and time on a game that is not well received in the public, this is counter productive for the team behind it.
On the other side, getting small updates based on the input of the user base, that's a bit more productive.
I get your view, I myself experienced updateless video games, and these were the days. But these games were the product of a survival bias. There are many other game that were not making enough money to sustain the company's finances behind (and most importantly, the dev salaries) (see Infogrammes)
Now don't get me wrong, I am certainly not talking about the way they handle how the game belongs to someone and how versioning works. A game where you can download any version (see Minecraft) can coexist with the iterative and more productive methodology of maintaining and adding new features into the game through time and based on the users' input.
There's an analogy with the music industry too. Music recording before was for the "elite" who were sure that their music would hit. Nowadays, the music recording broadens to the public, ergo more less quality focused music is released.
The same goes with video games