It's been mostly like this for a long time, but it is slowly changing. Open data repositories and scientific software libraries/products are beginning to count more and more (at least many of us are pushing for this). It also depends on the target career past graduation. Papers matter a lot for tenure-track positions, and much less for science support (scientific software developers, data engineers, lab managers etc.) in academia, or most jobs in the industry.

The 3 paper requirement in the game is also not a formal requirement in most universities--it's more of an implied requirement by individual PhD advisors. FWIW, my first lead-author paper I published a year past my PhD. During my PhD, I produced two relatively large scientific software applications (one open and one closed source) and a few open datasets. I'm now 8 years past my PhD and relatively successful in my field, 90th or so percentile based on common metrics--papers, citations, and funds raised.

Bottom line, papers are important but not the only thing that counts. Outside of tenure-track careers where they are crucial, it's possible to establish yourself as a scientist and be respected by your peers by publishing software and data.

In what fields is 3 papers expected? In my field, Psychology, 3 first-author papers sounds like a reasonable lower bound, but that seems like it would be a lot to expect out of Biologists or hard scientists.

Ah, good point. I'm in Earth sciences. 3 papers before PhD is reasonable here, just not a formal university requirement.

Current 4th year in Biology. Generally, 1 paper is expected, but it is not strictly necessary to graduate. Highly doubt that the PI will let you go without finishing your project though.