"Now why the hell does a friggin' game need admin rights, you ask?..."
"Users are to blame to put up with it and accept that they're "forced" to use admin privs to run programs. "
In my opinion, "Blame the user" is not part of the problem. The user wants their email, web and apps to work. The user on the most part does not have the required knowledge to understand what they're "forced" to put up with. They rely on administrators or nerds like us to provide the advice they need to help complete their tasks. We're left contending with the flaws to resolve problems that may have no clear resolution... the switch to "admin" gets thrown on as a result.
Is it the users fault? They didn't design the software. Is it the admins fault? The admin shouldn't have given admin capabilities to the user, but again, they didn't design the software either. If the problems remain unresolved by the developer despite the negative feedback, from here, I will agree with your "third party software" blame.