Asmongold reveals talks with powerful US Senator over video game gambling

Twitch streamer Asmongold has revealed that he is making contact with high-ranking officials in the United States government in order to discuss microtransactions and loot systems in video games.

Asmongold has long been vehemently opposed to microtransactions in video games, though they continue to become ever more common.

In Q3 2021, Activision Blizzard announced that they had earned a whopping $1.2 billion from just microtransactions in that quarter alone.

EA’s full-year revenue in 2021 amounted to $5.6bn, of which approximately 29% (~$1.6bn) came from their Ultimate Team modes.

There’s clearly a huge market for microtransactions in games, but the gambling aspect of these loot boxes, such as in Ultimate Team where you don’t typically know what you’re going to get for your money, has been a huge source of debate.

• Read More: Asmongold hits out at Twitch following second channel suspension

Asmongold is one person who has regularly spoken up against loot boxes in gaming, and now he’s looking to take it one step further, by getting the US government involved.

“We kind of have made contact with Ted Cruz’s office,” Asmon said during his June 12 stream, referencing the Texas senator. “It doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen, but we’ll see. I think I can get a lot of, especially religious Republican people, on board with this, by selling it as gambling.

“Because it is. You’re effectively indoctrinating kids into gambling. I don’t know, but I really want to try and do it. I’m actually going to try to do this.”

There’s no telling where these conversations could go, if there even are any real conversations had between Asmon and Cruz, but many countries across the globe have been assessing loot boxes and microtransactions in video games in recent years.

In April 2018, the Netherlands and Belgium banned the sale of microtransactions in games sold in their countries. Other countries, such as China, continue to permit the sale of microtransactions, with the caveat that all must come with the probability of earning different rewards.

• Read More: NBA 2K loot boxes branded “deceptive” in $5m class-action lawsuit

In 2019, Republic Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill to congress in an attempt to ban loot boxes and other microtransactions in games played by minors, but the bill did not progress any further.

Could Asmon help further this bill, or a similar one, along?