Republican Senator Ted Cruz Is A Gaming Microtransaction Whale

Senator Ted Cruz is a man who were I to list all his political and moral shortcomings would be detaining you for hours. He is also, like most of us, someone who plays video games, and how he plays them will not be a surprise to anyone.

Here’s a little excerpt from the latest episode of Cruz’s own podcast, which he runs with co-host Michael Knowles:

That clip and quotes above are missing a bit of the conversation; the actual segment from his podcast runs a little longer, and Cruz says in full (I’ve removed a little bit where they go off-topic):

Video games are designed to be addictive. Now, I’m something of a gamer, I’m not a gamer like hardcore Twitch streamers, and I don’t do the massive multiplayer games…I don’t like it when you can buy in-game items and sort of make your character stronger, or get advantages.

Now I’ll confess, when I play some games, I’ll sometimes buy it, cuz it is more fun if suddenly your character has a lot more great stuff that would take you six months or a year to build up. So sometimes I’ll, okay, I’ll spend 20 bucks and buy a, you know, a treasure chest full of coins, cuz then I can spend them to get cool things in the game.

As one reply to the above tweet says, “‘I’ve never heard Republican economic policy summarized so succinctly”.

For the record, while this looks like a speedrun through the definition of “hypocrisy”, something the Senator is no stranger to, for context the clip is actually part of a longer conversation where Cruz is basically saying that, while he will spend money in order to get to the front of the line faster, he thinks having stuff like loot boxes in games aimed at kids is a very bad idea.