As a generalization, this is false. Certainly there is more emphasis on publication than is warranted, but most of the top places care much more about impact/reputation than about raw # of papers or citations. If you talk to people about how research labs hire newly-minted PhDs, how faculty are hired, or how tenure decisions are made, everything I've heard suggests that, at least for good places, they aren't just looking at the length of your pub list or the # of citations.

I feel that's overstating it but even if not, is it worse than industry? I've found academia to be very accepting of different viewpoints and depending on the field, experimentation is encouraged.

In my viewpoint, if an advisor in academia calls something 'high-risk' it's within the context of the overall work. For example, in grad school, the aim is to make a contribution to the field and get a PhD. Several students I've known have followed 'promising' lines of work (after disregarding advice to contrary) and ended up with nothing.