There are certainly teams of people of that technical caliber today at Blizzard, Riot, Sony Santa Monica (and lots of other places farther from me) making amazing, cutting edge game tech. But there are also teams like the ones the author described that don't have amazing tech skills that still can make games we couldn't dream of thanks to game engines. I think it is exciting.
What's Blizzard done that's technically impressive as of late? They scrapped Titan, and Overwatch isn't particularly groundbreaking from what I can tell.
This is a sad comment that reeks of the gaming community where nobody creates anything so they've no grasp on the feats that these companies have been delivering over and over again for decades.
It's a genuine question; their most recent games have been an FPS, a MOBA, and a card game. I can't tell what "cutting edge game tech" that they happen to be creating with them.
Good games? Depending on your outlook, yeah. But there's nothing really...different? About them?
There are still great people working in the games industry, but it's larger and segmented. These days you can be an engine programmer working on e.g. Frostbite or id Tech for EA and ZeniMax, respectively. These have resulted in games like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Doom (2016). Dragon Age: Inquisition required a lot of engine work because Frostbite was originally designed for first-person shooters like Battlefield, and Doom is a bit of a technological marvel, and it's kind of a showcase piece for id Tech 6.
Bear in mind everything that's not included in this analysis: AI, mesh deformation, level logic, player mechanics, enemy mechanics, all the lower level stuff and so many things I haven't even thought of.