Sea of Thieves is basically Microsoft's No Man's sky. But many people liked and had fun with NMS even at launch when it had much less content than now.
But what about that neutered down thread title ? There is more precise context here. The discussion is really about unfinished games sold at full price (like Sea of Thieves and NMS).
SoT is more in line of the separation of expectation and reality. For many, people would have seen this game as perfectly fit for progression trees and missions and all that stuff you find in games like Destiny or pseudo MMOs.
But instead they didn't do that. They really borrowed the model directly from EvE online. Do you want to do, there are 3 quest givers if you care for it or just sail around and do your own thing, find stuff, steal stuff, share stuff, regardless once you hand it in, you still get the XP/rewards anyway. Some people need a ton of direction, need cutscenes, need everything done for them. This game does not of that, not even a single tutorial or hint. The stories are user generated, and playing the game is really all about experiences you build in the game. The more you play, the more experiences, the more you want to come back and play.
There are a great deal of a number of stories in this game, I have a couple stories that I'll always have in my mind. Like the first time we cleared the fort with Azbat, and I wanted to call it a night, but we kept going. The first time I sailed through a hurricane and the boat was getting railed by lightning. The time we made friends with another boat, only to have my crew mate accidentally fire his gun in their direction, and immediately they can around rammed us and fighting for half and hour ensued, treasure lost at sea and I was diving at depths to pick it up and bring it to the surface so that it wouldn't sink to the bottom. The first time i joined a bunch of randoms who were roleplaying and we got a jump on a skiff, and the other player was saying that we could take X and Y treasures but we had to leave some other ones, and those players staying in character. Then eventually calling for a steal everything and down his ship.
Lots of stories that are complicated events that unfold on their own, none of it planned, none of it scripted. Just things that happen. The game is not persistent like an MMO is. Like EvE is. So the game's persistent world is largely accomplished through streaming or if the developers decide to immortalize certain players in their world.
There are a lot of things SoT could do to add more content. Like fighting PVE boats like skeleton ships and other things that make sense in the world. Sure, I've got some ideas of my own. But when I read most of the comments about complaints of content, it really boils down to, I'm used to playing and being rewarded for playing. And this game doesn't give me loot boxes, and this game doesn't give me anything for playing it.
And people will need to mature out of that instant gratification/entitlement phase. Gaming should never have been about getting people rewarded for playing the game more. You play the game because you enjoy the game and that falls in line with just about every sport, board game etc. We shouldn't have to reward people to enjoy the gameplay, because now you're only feeding their addiction, you're not getting them to understand the gameplay.
How many item/progression based games get dry at the end? You end up collecting all these things, only to toss them out at the very end of the game because you have everything. Once you have everything, people stop playing, so they continually make it harder and harder to get more stuff. And either people quit playing, or they keep playing, but how many were actually sticking around because they enjoyed the game itself.
And so to that end, I always give higher marks to games that aren't loot games, sure I like loot based games, there's nothing wrong with that, but every single game does not need to be a collect-a-thon game either.
There's no minimum amount of 'content' that constitutes a fun experience. Quite a lot of (mobile) games probably hide the lack of a fun game loop with the psychology of unlocking content.
