What VIDEO GAMES Are Learning from CASINOS

As long as the quality of the 'free' game doesn't drop I'm happy. This makes me a bit concerned though. If console games went down the route of mobile games. I'd find a new source of entertainment.

Could you really not find any hearthstone footage that wasn't from the beta?

Know when games were really like casinos? In the '70s and '80s when you had to pay 25 cents for a minute of gameplay until you were good. 

I'm concerned, but I think a balance will be struck in the end.

I generally don't pay real money for in-game grab-bags. Though I have bought some specific items on the Steam Market place using money I made from selling game items I acquired (from TF2).

I typically don't mind the option to pay for cosmetic stuff (so long as the cosmetic stuff is new, and not replacing something that used to be free), but the concept of randomized grab-bags/loot-boxes is complete garbage to me. As obnoxious as the prices may be sometimes, at least on Steam you have the market place where you can buy specific items from people rather than going on unboxing sprees. Trading's a thing too. The whole unboxing thing's just a really shady way to exploit people with impulse issues, and at some point, a new line will either be crossed, or an existing one will be acknowldged, legally speaking.

For buying loot boxes, I would prefer to only have them purchasable in M rated games. And if it's T, then they should have to provide multiple avenues to get the same exact items outside of the loot boxes. Not just "play the game for 80 hours and pray" but actual objectives that will guarantee that item every time. Or at least the chance to get it by playing the game for 80 hours and praying without the option of putting money down for that chance to increase. Mostly that's just to prevent the gambling aspect and the game devs from using an audience that's under the legal age requirement, but also because Destiny is only rated T and I would much rather have reliable ways of getting those legendary shaders since they are consumables this time. It wouldn't be so bad if I had to swap them out cause then I'd still need 33 of them just to deck out all my guardians and their weapons (5 armor pieces, ghost, 3 weapons, sparrow, ship). However that cuts into the money making model so no one would ever go for it. I'll say that we're about to see video games put under the microscope and this is just the start of the video games are gambling discussion (obviously not this video specifically, but the idea that was brought up recently in which The Know is reporting on)

I've been worried for awhile 

Jim Sterling covered this a good deal, and at first I didn't have that much of an issue with it; however when they start adding stuff like this into premium games, it starts to get worrying, I fear that we will start to see those 'Gates" into full price games in the near future.