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Is Republican senator Josh Hawley an advocate for video game players or an ambitious politician with a savvy staff who know a win-win argument when they see one? The freshman senator from Missouri, who plans to soon introduce a bill that will ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions, spoke to Kotaku yesterday about his plans.

If this loot box bill passes as proposed, it will make it a fineable offense for publishers to put loot boxes in games that target children or are played by children. It will also ban pay-to-win mechanics in those games.

In a short phone interview on Monday, I asked Hawley some questions about whether this loot box bill can pass, how it came about, and whether its all just a publicity stunt. You can read the interview here, lightly edited for clarity:

Jason Schreier: First of all, Im curious: Do you have a personal stake in this issue? Is this something youve encountered in video games youve played?

Senator Josh Hawley: I have to be honest with you, Jason, I am not myself a gamer, so it does not stem from my personal experience. It stems from being a parent of two little boys and talking to lots of parents, and also hearing, by the way, from lots of gamers who are concerned about what the C-suite is doing here, basically adding casinos to childrens games.

Schreier: Do your kids play games with loot boxes in them?

Hawley: They do not yet. Theyre six and four. So they are not playing any games at the moment. But Ive heard from lots of parents who say that their kids, the stories about all of a sudden these charges, What are these weird charges on my card? I thought I already paid for the game, how is it Im being asked to pay more? Did I authorize this, how did the kid buy it? Weve heard from gamers, too, talk about this ruining the integrity of the game by essentially changing the way the game works.

Schreier: You mention parents finding charges from their kids suddenly showing up on their credit card bills. That can happen a lot with microtransactions that arent loot boxes. Why focus specifically on loot boxes?

Hawley: Both loot boxes and pay to win. We think the reason why is that its foremost addiction development. Its an attempt for kids to, as I said before, adding casinos to kids games in an attempt to get them hooked, in an attempt to exploit them. We dont allow actual casinos to exploit children in this way. Why should we allow the gaming industry to do so? These C-suite executives who are driving this trend.

Schreier: Why focus specifically on children? Adults cant also be exploited by these casinos?

Hawley: Adults can for sure be exploited. I think that childrenthere are a couple of things as we know in a variety of contexts, whether its casinos proper or public health issues, we often look at kids and say theyre uniquely vulnerable. They dont necessarily know the nature of these microtransactions, being on the lookout for them in the way that an adult might. And while I realize that these microtransactions, these particular kinds, compromise the integrity of the game no matter who is subject to them, theres something I think thats pretty unique to kids and the addiction angle I think is pretty unique to kids as well. So this is an area too where I think we ought to be able to come together on a bipartisan basis and say, Look, when youre directing this sort of pro-addiction activity, pro-addiction behavior toward children, or practices toward children, we oughta be able to say no to that.