His argument is that games nowadays are devoid of depth and content outside thinly veiled addiction models with shinies. He's totally right about it.

Even competitive games are taking a turn for the worst with forced changes to the meta. It makes more money but it is an abusive addiction cycle of making someone's favorite thing broken but making someone else's favorite thing useless.

Given how microtransactions are typically there to reduce time / grind, I'd hardly say they're free though. Time is money.