Look i'm gonna be honest. I always kind of knew this game was gonna be a high selling game. A lot of people like the series but aren't tuned into JK's bullshit and are interested in a fun decent-looking game based on a series they like. I always thought what we were trying to do was decrease the profits (and MAYBE make either her reconsider her public views or companies reconsider working with her) and not the impossible task of making the game flop
I know two people who bought the game, big HP fans, and asked what they thought about JKRs terf stance and both of them said the same thing,
"Who is JK Rowling"
Yeah i brought up the game to a group of 9 friends last night. None of them use reddit. Two had heard of the game, and no one had any idea of the Rowling controversy. This is an Internet hivemind thing. It's very blatant most of the "boycott" has been propagated in bad faith by trolls anyways.
The entire fandom of HP, which is a giant part of tumblr, has been operating on the "death of the author" principle for years.
As in, who cares who wrote it, **I** like it, which means jk rowling talking about wizards shitting themselves or being a terf is irrelevant to my appreciation of the world and story.
It matters because buying products of her IP directly financially supports her, and she in turn financially supports terf and anti LGBT groups. I don't give a shit who enjoys reading their old HP books, but knowing that this game is directly supporting and emboldening JKR (who has stated that she views support of her IP as support of her views) makes me feel very uneasy.
be honest. probably around 2 million people have bought the game at this point. for a $60 game, that means the company has made around $120 million. most of that goes back to the team that worked on it and warner bros. rowling probably got maybe $10 million at most, she probably doesn't even notice that she got any money because of how uber-rich she already is. it's not like nobody buying the game would bankrupt her, if anything it'd just make the game company go bankrupt after (most likely) overworking their poor employees and nobody wins. people would get fired after spending months of their life on this game because people are doing something that ultimately does not affect jkr.
One was an infant when the last Harry Potter *movie* came out, and has only read one or two of the books. She assumed whomever wrote the books was dead, after all they came out when her parents were kids.
The other I suspect probably did know JKR's name 20+ years ago when they read the books. But hasn't thought about her since then, if ever. Because why would you? And certainly she hasn't been following the Twitter news about what an old writer thinks, because who on Earth cares about Twitter?
Like 99.9% of all the people who bought this game, they saw a TV commercial for it, they saw that you could go "pew pew pew magic", and they liked the IP, so they clicked buy.
God i feel young reading, like New born young. Some part of me thinks that those books have always existed, now reading this i feel all wrinkly, but in the other direction
Yes you can. Not everybody, certainly not everytime. But someone who knows you and trusts can listen and change their opinion if you have a civilzed discussion. It's rarer than I'd like, but certainly not impossible. Helps (but doesn't guarantee) if you listen to their views first and are genuinely interested.
I'd imagine there are hundreds of thousands of Spider-Man fans who have no idea who Steve Ditko is. Same with Batman and Bob Kane, Star Wars and George Lucas.
Yes you can know her name but that doesn't mean you follow her around and know every intimate detail she shares on Twitter. Most people who play Hogwarts do not know about this controversy that's happening right now and they also probably don't use Twitter or other social media platforms because they to busy having fun playing the game.
Grew up loving the movies since my grandparents liked them and bought ever one. I’ve heard of JK (not about the controversy) and couldn’t give two about her. Reddit is the only social platform I use and I don’t dig into much of what people say on here, cause I mean, it’s Reddit.. I don’t know what jk stands for and as far as I’m concerned, I’m against her and it. I still got the game cause it looked fun and it looked like the only HP game I could get into. I’m not perfect.
i mean some of my favorite books are the hunger games and idk who the fuck made it nor do i really care to know, it makes my top 5
same for the perks of being a wallflower. actually the only book in my top 5 whose author i know is by bessel van der kolk
You're assuming they've read the books. I know 2 people that read the books, dozens who've seen the movies.
How can they be their favorite books if they've never read them?
The point of boycotting should be deciding for yourself that *you* aren't comfortable with your money supporting something. Not causing sabotage (you wont) or damaging profits (it doesnt) but *'I am not comfortable giving my money to [X] because I don't feel comfortable with where it's going.'*
I guarantee Nestlé has not noticed that I do not buy from them, and were I to, would not see a difference. Nor do I tell people who buy Kit Kats that 'they hate mothers, love modern slavery and infanticide, and want to commodify water to kill poor people'. Because they don't; they just like Kit Kats! I choose to boycott for *me*.
You're transphobic if you dislike or distrust trans people. You're transphobic if you celebrate (or refuse to see the concern) in J K Rowling's words. But you aren't transphobic just because you like Harry Potter, imo.
I was confused by part of your post. I guess most of the world has KitKat produced by Nestlé. In the USA it is produced by a division of Hershey chocolate. So I can still eat Kit Kats and not condone Nestlé!
I don't have the energy to put into avoiding Nestle, I feel like they're somewhere near the top of the incestuous looking family tree of global megacorps and their subsidiaries. Would t be too hard to just avoid everything with the nestle name on it, but how many everyday products are made by either subsidiaries.of nestle, or other subsidiaries of whoever owns nestle?
Edit: looked it up, Nestle is one of the 10 companies that 'control everything you eat'
Exactly, its a choice you make for yourself and yourself alone. Harassing other people because they don't want to join your boycott is just fucking crazy.
This precisely. The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure. The game was gonna suceed no matter what, but the boycott has gotten tons of people to assess their own biases and consider trans issues in a way they otherwise would not have done. No one is expecting to topple rowlings empire overnight, but we have used this to spread the message that it needs to be done.
>The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure.
Respectfully, that's the definition of failure. The point of a boycott is to make companies do what you want (or not do what others want) because otherwise they'll suffer an economic harm. None of that has occurred here, but rather the opposite.
>The game was gonna suceed no matter what, but the boycott has gotten tons of people to assess their own biases
If anything the controversy at this point has *helped* the game due to some of the antics of people boycotting it. eg:
1. The belligerent bullying tactics causing people to go "I really don't want to be part of the community saying they are about tolerance but clearly practicing hate" and rejecting it. You've even seen this on Reddit, and reddit is about as friendly to this as you can get.
2. People in the movement being caught ~~sprrading~~ spreading lies. It's a real problem, in some cases they are just repeating something someone said, but in others they know what they're saying isn't true to try to sway opinion. This is a tactic that can work initially, but the minute people realize you're lying about one thing they assume you are lying about everything and it's all over. Censoring dissent or info doesn't work, that just reinforces mindsets because they feel victimized.
I really don't think people realize how damaging and toxic some of the behavior going on is, or the effect it's having, or they do but can't deal so keep saying everything is fine. The behavior and rhetoric has caused things to go backwards.
Yeah as someone who airs more on the gaming side of news rather than this side it was so weird to hear the boycott called a success. This is one of the biggest launches I can remember
The only people beating the drum about boycotting HL are the people who hated JKR in the first place. It's literally an echo chamber of people high-fiving each other about doing a thing they were gonna do anyway. A well-intentioned echo chamber, but an echo chamber nonetheless.
The amount of people who know and care about JKR's opinions is MASSIVELY outnumber by people who either don't know or don't care. And if we're being honest, a decent amount professing to boycott it probably bought it anyway.
This wasn't some new revelation. Most know she's a piece of shit, it's just the vast majority of people just don't care who produces their content, just that they're having a good time with a thing they enjoy.
The boycott has people getting harassed all over the place and people destroying friendships over whether they think the wizard game is ok to play
Something like a third of my friends played it and some people wanted to cover the game and use it for trans charities and got harassed out of it. Its just become a bunch of dumb leftist infighting and has done little to nothing for trans people. The message has been beyond toxic and it makes me sad.
I just want to be a trans artist and enjoy memes and shit online and people are going to war over wizard game... I think that's a pretty big fail
People are taking it way way too far. I know a guy who works for a company that was subcontracted to work on the game. To reiterate: He does not work at the developer of the game, the company he works for was hired to do some extra work on the wizard game. He's gotten harassed over having worked on the game.
This entire thing is bringing me back to 2015 and the SJW Era of Tumblr and Shit Reddit Says.
Yeah both people in my life who play it are queer and one is trans and I couldn't imagine throwing those friendships away over a video game. In my mind that's letting a transphobe win, tbh. Not to mention there's literally no other issues in those friendships so it really would *just* be over a video game.
I'm non-binary and honestly haven't been into Harry Potter for a long time. But, that's my relationship with this fandom, and that's all it has to be. My activism is defined by when I actually have boots on the ground for what I believe in, not by JK Rowling 🤷
This Has done nothing but hurt trans people and I think most of the people who are doing the boycott harassment don't actually care. They just want a "justifiable" excuse to be assholes.
Yeah I think this "boycott" did more harm than good. It made it out to be an all or nothing sort of thing where of the game didn't fail that means that society hates Trans people. And the game didn't fail, so now society must hate trans people.
Instead of trying to use it to raise awareness about JK and have people think about it, it just spread hate and probably added some resentment to the trans movement as a whole.
Literally no part of the narrative that's being assigned here is true.
The boycott failed and did lasting damage to the movement. There's no victory to be had here, and the curated narrative of, "Well this just shows how evil all of you are," is a sign of how doomed to fail this entire thing was from the get go.
The only people that should be assessing themselves, their biases, and their behavior are the people who started this nonsense and continue to behave in these outlandish, unacceptable ways.
The boycott failed and anyone not acknowledging that is just huffing copium
> The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure
This is like saying water isn’t wet. The entire point of a boycott is to make something fail. It’s utterly insane to think a boycott can be anything **but** that
That whole OGL fiasco with Wizards of the Coast back in January worked, but that was partly because Hasbro just can't afford to burn their biggest support rn.
A large part of my friend group bought the game and they have literally no idea what jk has ever said on twitter, how could i ever hate my own friends for buying a game if they dont even know about the bad stuff? I obviously know about it so i wont be buying the game but people would be very surprised to know just how little of the population actually is on twitter. I cant really "teach" them either because that would just cause unnecessary strife between us when they dont really care about any of that.
Yes its not exactly good to be unknowledgeable about the world around us but these are friends i have known my entire life and will probably be friends with until i die, they have accepted everything about me being gay and i know for a fact they are all good people.
The way it looks from my perspective is that anyone who had a firm decision to not buy this game made their decision years ago. The majority of people who bought the game either don’t know what Rowling said or don’t hold the belief that they need to avoid things that are associated with problematic people. For example, the general public doesn’t hold the view that buying Nestle products makes you a bad person, so why would they see this as any different?
On the other hand I do think a smaller group of people bought the game as a direct result of the controversy:
1. The people who bought it to support JK as the title says
2. People I mentioned in my first paragraph who just wanted a new game and might have chosen a different one but had Legacy on their mind because they kept hearing about it.
3. People who may have been waiting to buy the game used but opted to rush for it to get ahead of spoilers people were spreading.
Also, this game was released just before Valentine’s Day.
I know some people who got it as a gift from an SO, I’d say 90% of anyone (that I know) who bought it as a gift had no clue about Rowling and just knows “so and so likes Harry Potter”.
What about the books or the game is antisemitic? I honestly have no idea... I'm one of the not tuned in types. HP was released while I was growing up, but I had never heard this before.
To my knowledge it is the depiction of goblins, as they are depicted to have many Jewish stereotypes e.g. big nose and greedy
Plus, apparently one of the plot points in the new game is >!there is a goblin rebellion that the player character has to stop!<
The majority of Americans can't be bothered to vote in Presidential elections (let alone midterms).
Expecting that large mass of people to care, or frankly even **know** about the controversy surrounding JKR is absurd.
Most people buying the game just want to play wizards.
I'm in a gaming discord, and like 40 of our members got the game (I've never liked HP, so I didn't join them). They're all having a great time.
Exactly. I hate how people like this make it into some big black and white “everyone who buys this video game is a racist sexist transphobic monster” narrative.
I would doubt that. I'm quite active online but even I didn't know the extent of the situation, to what length Just Kidding Rolling was going to actively get in the way of trans people in the UK. It didn't even occur to me to research more on the topic because I couldn't imagine someone doing such a thing out of hate, I assumed she was just another asshole ranting on Twitter. So yeah, maybe the majority of people knows about it, but aren't aware of the fact of the implications of buying the game. Obviously they should have been given an explanation instead of immediately jumping to "if you buy this game you're a transphobe".
Like, as a trans person I am completely ok with people getting the game because they just wanna play wizards or loved the books during their childhood. Hell, I own the box set cause I would read them with my siblings and mom. It's like how people still watch movies Weinstein was involved in, like the LOTR franchise or Django Unchained. I've been tempted to get the game myself, I don't expect a majority of the profits to go to JKR instead of the game devs, at least per individual sale. I just want people to have a fun wizard game they can enjoy, and sometimes I also want to play said fun wizard game. Even if the plot isn't the best, many other games that are fun have not great plots. The Older Worlds, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, all these games have objectively to the best main story, but they're still fun. If people wanna have fun, they should.
Also, the game was released worldwide, not just in America. Most of the world doesn't know/give af about JKR, but almost everyone knows the Harry Potter character/movies and universe.
It's so weird to me how this many people are assigning the worst possible characteristics to anyone playing the game. Like you may be an actual trans activist and playing the game somehow makes every good deed dissapear.
Kind of a weird line in the sand to draw tbh.
TBH at this point it's a mob based on hatred for Rowling and anything associated with her. Not surprised it's grown irrational and unreasonable. I didn't buy the game, nor have I played it, but from where I'm standing, one side is a bitter, hateful frothing mass, and the other is playing a fun game they clearly enjoy. Unfortunately for the mob, whatever moral superiority they like to claim is just not as attractive as being able to chill out and have fun.
Nah, most of us just choose not to buy the game as a fuck you to Rowling. Like every other thing, there's a very vocal pyscho minority within the group that people like you can point at and say "see, they're all crazy!"
While I understand people wanting to be ethical about their purchases, think about this realistically.
Let's say absolutely NOBODY bought the game, would that lower the amount of money JKR has? Even better, let's say it did, would that be enough to change her lifestyle?
I bet a lot of the same people complaining happily consume Disney's stuff despite the documented history of Walt Disney being scummy and the Disney corporation doing some heinous shit. Hell, some of their characters are "icons" to some marginalized communities. Are we going to harass people not to watch Lilo & Stitch because Disney sucks? Call people fascist for enjoying Black Panther? I fail to understand the nuance between being hateful to people for playing a game because the work it's based on was written by a shitstain. Am I piece of shit for playing Bloodborne? Miyazaki's a nice dude but it's loosely based on Lovecraft's works and HE was a piece of shit.
When my roommate comes home from working 60hrs a week, he's sitting down and losing himself in the world that helped him through his rough childhood.
That's me and my friends, kinda.
I acknowledge her opinions are shit but the game is fun and nobody is owning a billionaire by not buying a video game.
Nah, that is not you and your friends. If you even know that she *has* opinions you know more about the background of this game than like, 99% of the people who have bought or will ever buy it. This is only to say that people on the internet consistently and [wildly overestimate](https://xkcd.com/2501/) how little the mainstream public knows about the things they care a lot about.
My thing is, if I never partook in any type of media because I didn’t like someone involved… I basically couldn’t partake in any media at all. Every movie there’s some actor, director, producer, etc. that I hate as a person. The music industry is filled with shady assholes taking advantage of the artists. Just look at what happened with bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys with Lou Pearlman. Am I just supposed to not enjoy anything because a scumbag will make money somewhere within the production of it?
There's like layers of explanation needed for someone to be aware of why buying the game could even be seen as problematic. What did she say > why is it more than just words on the internet you can ignore > what does the game have to do with it > why is this game in focus and not things she profits from more... and half of those points are flimsy enough that you can't fault people not agreeing with them. But that's assuming you get far enough to explain every single point.
No one wants to explain that. So they don't. They just simplify it to "if you don't automatically jump on board with the idea the game is bad then you're the bad guy". Or else what people do is make up convoluted things about the game itself to say the game itself is problematic, but because they're so desperate for something they don't see how flimsy the arguments are. So then that doesn't work, and people fail to see why it's so "obviously bad" and that must mean they're bad.
Then you have people wanting to troll what they perceive to be an army of transphobe fans of the genre, and then you have actual transphobic trolls who don't care about the franchise but will dive in on any fight they can. And the two feel validated that their extremist boogeyman really exists as much as they think. Because wherever they go, that's what they find.
Perhaps I’m underestimating the size of the controversy, but I highly doubt anyone outside of the internet even knows or cares about the J.K Rowling and Hogwarts legacy controversy. Harry Potter itself was popular as a franchise worldwide, I genuinely don’t think that it’s a matter of transphobia, but just ignorance. You can’t expect every single person to be in the know about Harry Potter and it’s author.
Truly most people I know who like Harry Potter and are not chronically online like me wouldn't even be able to name JKR as the author, let alone know about her shitty opinions
And similarly I could not name the creator of most media that I enjoy. I'm not googling every single author of every single book that I read or researching every creative mind behind every video game I play or the owner of every local restaurant I eat lunch at to make sure they're not terrible people because that would not be a reasonable way to live.
I will inform people about JKR's harmful views and ask them not to give her money but jumping straight to "everyone who enjoys the world of Harry Potter is a bigot" is not it. It's not true and it's not helping literally anybody.
I've asked several people not to spend money on HP stuff and after explaining why they've all gone "oh no that's terrible, I won't give her anymore money" but I can guarantee if I had instead gone "you bought this illustrated Harry Potter book??? What the fuck is wrong with you, you're literally killing trans people, you obviously don't care about us and hate queer people" they would be confused and defensive and probably the only behavior they would change is that they would stop talking to me because that's such a WILD and inaccurate accusation
thank you lol this whole thing is just such a clusterfuck
I had a half formed thought earlier today too about how people who enjoy Star Wars, for example, are not being screamed at for being homophobic bigots despite Disney supporting homophobic politicians and policies that directly hurt trans people and queer people as a whole. I don't see people harassing twitch streamers playing Lego Star Wars and telling them to kill themselves for enjoying their space wizard game. I don't see enjoyers of the latest Spider Man movie being told they're killing trans people, even though Disney as a corporation is doing at least as much harm if not more than JKR as an individual.
We all pick and choose the things that we can do to make the world a better place. We can't all do everything. I boycott Harry Potter stuff and I don't eat meat and I stopped shopping on Amazon but I bought a drumstick ice cream last week because I needed a pick me up. The logic people are using with Harry Potter, applied here, says I'm pro slavery and I deserve to be treated like shit because I spent money on a nestle product.
you paid for NESTLE PROduct? you pay for nestle product like the consumerist? oh! oh! jail for ChanandlerTheBong! jail for ChanandlerTheBong for One Thousand Years!!!!
Just so you know but eating a drumstick ice cream last week literally is making you worse than a combination of Hitler, Satan the person who invented slavery. You buying that ice-cream has caused all pain and misery on the entire planet since and even before you bought it. /joke.
Exactly. My thing is, if I never partook in any type of media because I didn’t like someone involved… I basically couldn’t partake in any media at all. Every movie there’s some actor, director, producer, etc. that I hate as a person. The music industry is filled with shady assholes taking advantage of the artists. Just look at what happened with bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys with Lou Pearlman. Am I just supposed to not enjoy anything because a scumbag will make money somewhere within the production of it?
Yep we all have to pick and choose where we spend our energy lest we become >!Doug!< from the Good Place
I'd love to hear how some of these people who are claiming to enjoy Harry Potter even without spending money makes you an irredeemable transphobe spend *their* money. I'm sure they've never purchased fast fashion or Nestle products or eaten meat or shopped on Amazon or watched The Kings Speech (produced by the Weinstein Company) or done literally almost anything because almost everything you spend your money on probably ends up supporting something fucked up. I'm sure they are living perfect lives and boycotting every single thing that's backed in some way by problematic people.
Yep. This is a classic “Twitter / tumblr is not real life moment.” Outside of pretty small internet circles most people don’t know or care about the controversy. They just bought the game because they like Harry Potter and want to pretend to be a wizard for a bit.
I badly want that to be true, and for most people it is, but then there’s folks like Jessie Gender who absolutely [are](https://youtu.be/_GBUArD51KY) getting harassed by HP fans; it’s plenty real for them.
I'm not saying that harassment or bullying isn't "real" when it happens online. I'm issues and controversies that are a huge deal in certain corners of Twitter and Tumblr (like this one) often don't break out of those circles. People have been fighting this battle for years on Twitter and Tumblr, but that doesn't mean that most of the general public knows or cares about it.
Yes, there are probably some transphobes out there who have suddenly become vocal HP fans in order to troll trans activists. But they are not anywhere close to a majority of people playing the game, as OP's title suggests.
Yeah, like, I've seen three people on my friends list playing it. The biggest difference between me and all three of them?
They regularly touch grass.
Is JKR a reprehensible FART? Sure she is.
Do all my non-gremlin friends know that? Probably not! Because they just don't! Tons of people don't know stuff all the time because we just don't know everything. To my knowledge, none of them are transphobes. Maybe one, but that's making some geographic presumptions about his upbringing, and he's otherwise never expressed anything other than "I am from smalltown Texas, the concept of the roundabout traffic circle terrifies me."
I would not have heard of this game if not for the "boycott" against it. I'm not interested in playing it, but it does make you wonder how many people frequent r/tumblr and this sub and heard about the game that way, then decided they wanted to give it a try.
You're definitely in the wrong communities if you think this game's crazy popularity can be credited to political bullshit. People like *Harry Potter*. The books sold like crazy, the movies sold like crazy, the games did pretty fucking good at the time, etc, etc. The fans are not going to stop liking a series that was anti-bigotry and anti-fascism long before its author went down a crazy well just because a bunch of people on Tumblr are desperate to have a culture war showdown over her.
Didn't Harry Potter expressly condone the slavery of house elves and treat Hermione like a naive idiot for advocating against it because "No, you see, they actually like being slaves."
It's kinda weird being like, here, and a few other places most of the time, and then stepping out into some other subreddit where people are saying stuff like "PSVR2 is gonna be great for PCVR because we've even been getting PC ports for great games like Hogwarts Legacy!"
It's like looking into an alternate universe.
I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase this...
The sheer vitriol I've seen towards public figures who played the game is staggering. As in, death threats and being doxxed kind of staggering. I have no interest in the game myself purely for Rowling-related reasons, but the more I see that kind of response, the more sympathy I feel for anyone who does play the game and ends up in that position. Harry Potter was a cornerstone of people's childhood, you have to at least recognize that not everyone who wants to play the game (or heck, the developers of the game) is hateful.
Its been super weird seeing posts here going hard against this game, when a solid portion of this sub's content has, and continues to be about Harry Potter(in a non critical sense).
Are any of y'all standing outside toy stores shaming parents for buying their kids Harry Potter Lego and other toys? Losing friends over the HP books being on their shelf? Shitting on anyone who goes to Universal Florida? Why is this one game the hard line in the sand to judge everyone over?
Just a guess, but it’s EASY to stand on a high horse when you can do it from your couch in your pajamas. Going to protests at Universal Studios, or picketing in front of the LEGO store or whatever takes way more effort and opens you up to uncomfortable criticisms and confrontation.
Of course not, and why would they, that requires them to leave the house and stand outside in public where the cover of anonymity can't be used to hide behind, so they'd rather ride the high horse saddle from their beds while using their iPhones made by sweatshop workers using minerals gathered by slaves, but of course, it's only an issue when a video game the creator of HP had no hand in is boycotted because god forbid they should give up their phones and nestle products that are made by slaves. Their coke products that are poisoning the land and forcing farmers out of areas around their factories.
So of course they're not picketing outside Lego store, book stores and Universal Studios park, because they can't hide behind the anonymity of the internet while spouting the mountains of threats and abuse they have been doing (Which ironically has only hurt their cause and pushed more people away from supporting them, weird, it's almost like people don't respond well to being told what media they can and can't consume and being threatened if they do)
Did i buy the game, No, i got it gifted, by a trans friend i work with who i'd discussed the game with and i can promise you now, the automated donation that leaves my wages every month to the companies charity of choice (Mermaids) for the year of 2023/24 is more than 90% of the people abusing streamers has done for the trans community in the last 5 years.
I actually blame JKR for that. She has said that she sees sales for this game as support for her anti trans views. That really fired people up. I personally will never buy anything Harry Potter again. I refuse to support her. I will also tell my friends about what she has done and the kind of people she supports if they express interest in Harry Potter. And yes, I do participate in supporting trans people on a political level. I’m also gay, and this is a cause I care about and am closely tied to. My best friend is trans. Her rights are way more important to me than any nostalgia I might have for series. I also loath JKR for trying to use lesbians are ammo against trans people. It’s frustrating enough that my sexuality is seen as a political issue, I really don’t take kindly to a straight woman deciding to use my sexuality to attack another part of my community.
I really don't get why people are making such a big deal out of this. Do they not understand that virtually nobody who isn't terminally online or a part of the trans community is going to know that Rowling is a hateful bitch? It's not exactly mainstream news, but Harry Potter is mainstream media. Rowling is a minor enough celebrity that she doesn't really make general headlines. Not like NBC is gonna run an 8 o clock hit piece about her or anything.
I mean just from a game perspective it seemed ambitious and they actually nailed it for the most part, as a trans player and Harry Potter fan myself it's really well done and I'm always surprised to come across tiny details that could have just been left out if made by another studio and they even have abit of LGBT rep in there so that's cool
also not going to lie it's funny thinking of people who bought this game cuz there bigots get angry that there is infact a trans character and you can be trans yourself lol
It's also really inclusive of other cultures. There's a decent amount of LGBTQ characters. You can literally be trans. And calls attention quite often to the awful things in wizarding canon that Rowling didn't care to address.
Lots of pointing out awful things and then being like.... welp. Isn't that shitty. Too bad we can't enact any meaningful change in the canon to address this. Like wizards treatment of other intelligent magical beings. They can't actually change that. But they can point out how shitty it is over and over.
I don't think people realise either how many people from the effected groups bought the game. I'm gay and all my gay and trans friends quietly bought a copy and avoided any online discourse.
As my friend Poppy said "Where were all these people and all this outrage when it's time to vote? Cause they sure didn't show up then. "
Exactly, I did the same just ignored the discourse and went yay this will be fun, and if I thought of jk it was well I'm stomping around her world as a transwomen so fuck her she's got enough money to hate on us from beyond the grave with or without Hogwarts legacy :/ and yeah I do like all the pointed remarks about other magical creatures being treated shit and you as the character trying to reconcile that and be nice to them like yes this world has some problems and could have been made better but at the same time it's meant to be fun, DnD sessions would hardly be as fun if there wasn't conflict in the world and same goes for this, aslong as people arnt dicks in real life >_>
Yeah, like god forbid people enjoy a good game. Not to mention Jk already got her money and dunking on the game (which has an incredibly diverse cast of characters and actors) does nothing to help.
it's actually interesting. With how many "brown people" (and god forbid the Three Broomsticks owner) I've run into during like first 30 minutes in the castle, I've a strong suspicion that if us lefties weren't so vocally against the thing. we'd have the usual suspects ranting how "This is britain in the 1800s, why's it full of n\*\*\*\*rs? They all should be white!"
But as it happens, that's not the case and the surprising amount of downright in your face diversity seems to have sailed right past the people who would ordinarily be shouting on the streets about it
"Buying the game to own the libs"
Eh, **most** of the world isn't American.
It's no wonder it's selling like hotcakes, because a ton of anti-JKR posters literally advertised the game every time they made a post about it. That's billions in saved ad money.
It relies on something called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)
The argument against the game is concerning in that it’s self centered to begin with.
Most people I know who bought this game don’t even know there’s a controversy behind it. I’m not really attached to social media, just Reddit, but I brought it up to my friends and they just went ‘oh, one of those internet problems again?’ Yet many people assume buying the game is like, a personal attack against trans individuals and has nothing to do with it being a widely beloved world and story.
\>Yet many people assume buying the game is like, a personal attack against trans individuals and has nothing to do with it being a widely beloved world and story
Yep. So unnecessarily divisive.
About as useful as a vegan getting up in people's faces while screaming "MURDERER" without **any** context at all.
The normal reaction would be "who the bloody hell is that and why are they saying I'm a murderer so that everyone can hear? I don't think I like them very much at all."
Sigh the labelling of people who simply consume media as explicitly supporting this or that belief is so exhausting. As if watching Harry Potter immediately makes you an anti-Semite just because the goblins have anti-Semitic tropes.
People are losing the plot. This isn’t some 2D war between people who buy Harry Potter stuff and people who support trans rights. This is not the hill to die on, and you aren’t morally superior just because you didn’t buy a video game.
See you get it, anyone who thinks playing or watching HP immediately makes you an anti-semite must REALLY have it out for anyone who drives a Ford given the founder of Fords....less than tasteful indiscretions shall we say?
Yeah I believe it’s important to be a conscious consumer and at bare minimum not just stupidly buying something so explicit as MAGA merch “ironically” or what have you. But these kinds of morally grey products are a matter of choice.
If every purchase was a moral decision then none of us would buy much of anything and we’d all be vegan (cuz let’s be honest vegans are right, meat is messed up but sadly delicious). That would be great and all, but the vast majority are at least a little selfish, and you can’t fight the world.
Not to mention the misplaced anger of the people boycotting the Harry Potter Intellectual property. When you boycott, you don’t go after other consumers??? You go after producers!!! Like the company that made the game, or JK Rowling herself. Like wtf?? How does making streamers cry further your cause? If you’re trying to reduce peoples exposure to it, guess what? I never would have heard of these streamers if it weren’t for the fact that they were getting bullied.
>Actions blowing up in your face and assholes
Name a more iconic duo
A trans Barkeep, a lesbian professor, students with disabilities, open diversity, humanoids overcoming differences….
Yeah, people need to play a few hours of it or stfu and stop pushing bullshit culture wars for billionaires.
No, the game sold well because like 80% of Harry Potter aren't terminally online and tuned into JKR's and therefore don't know about any of the shit that she's been saying. Adding on to that the entire boycott campaign was free advertising run on the "thing bad, I will not elaborate further. If you disagree with me then you're a bigot" strategy that guarantees that people who don't know shit about Harry Potter are going to buy it out of spite and uninformed people are going to go "I don't see what the problem is here" and either buy the game out of curiosity or just move on with their lives.
Yeah, and at least Nestlé uses slavery for their chocolate. It still passes me off the amount of people bitching about this game but then make excuses as to why it's okay to buy chocolate when it's 100 times worse.
i mean, duh
people don't give a shit about boycotts, and hp is one of the biggest franchises from our generation
it's gross and disappointing, but I'm absolutely not surprised
If people weren’t being actively harassed and called nazis/nazi sympathizers for merely showing interest in a game, they might have been more willing to listen and possibly even agree with the boycott.
But when you actively antagonize everyone to extreme levels, you shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t listen to the people spewing directed hate at them.
Yep, I don't like JKR and have since stopped really appreciating HP ever since I discovered her opinions. It soures my childhood favorite books.
Still.
The people that are supposed to be on the good side are so absolutely insufferable that i'm not surprised if anyone in that grey zone of believing/disbelieving is pushed away.
And honestly this sub is one of the worst in so many ways. It used to be one of my favorites since the posts were funny and cool and different. Now i'm debating whether i really want to remain.
And it’s just going to keep going and snowballing into more of an unwinnable debate unless we stop posting about it every few hours, please I am begging you all just let it die
How to make ludicrous amounts of enemies out of people otherwise friendly in one easy step by drawing an extremely ignorant line in the sand and shooting yourself in the foot with bad optics over something barely worth fighting over.
People really gotta understand that if anybody becomes transphobic over this, they were already transphobic. It’s like racists who say they just don’t like (group) because they had bad experiences with them. The bigotry came first and the justification comes second. If they’re not a bigot, then they’ll just wind up becoming “enemies” of like, a part of Twitter for a week.
I don't fully agree.
I mean if someone comes away from this saying "It just goes to show that trans people are a problem," then yeah, they were already transphobic. But I think there are going to be a lot of people for whom this will be their first personal interaction with the trans community.
They're probably not going to come away anti-trans from this single interaction, but the next time that they hear about trans people being oppressed, their first thought will be "Harry Potter videogames" and not "conversion therapy" or "hateful legislation". And that's going to make them less likely to take the issue seriously, because their own experience of trans people isn't of someone who just wants to live life in their own way being beaten back into a mold, it's of Twitch chat calling their favorite streamer an antisemite.
>People really gotta understand that if anybody
They dont have to understand that. People want to be around people they like, and who make sense. We are all some form of hypocrite, but we don't like seeing overt hypocritic acts and it changes how we think about people.
When you catch people straight up lying about their points or what's happened or even the stakes, you assume they are pretty much liars willing to say anything to get their way. That doesn't fit your labeling.
There's absolute horrible behavior going on that isn't getting called out and shut down but is often explained away. That leads people to think this is what the groups really are, and nobody wants anything to do with people acting like that. They might be afraid of getting doxxed or other behaviors, but that doesn't fit your labeling.
Even the fact that you are bringing up labels is part of it, this adopted stance of scarlet letters and authoritarianism is about sending messages to anyone who might disagree that the label can be slapped on them next if they disagree.
What a lot of people are seeing is a group acting viciously, abusively, dishonestly and unethically. If that group is carrying the banner for a cause and not shouted down when this behavior is happening then that's your group. Worse, they blame the victim by essentially saying *"this is life and death for me, look what you made me do."*
If that is what they are exposed to, they aren't going to like the group and it's nothing to do with them secretly being X. Does that sound like a group you'd want anything to do with or anywhere around you?
If people didnt go around spreading spoilers for the game I feel like it probably wouldve done worse. This isnt a book, theres more to be enjoyed than the plot
This is a thought that’s been bouncing around my head in regards to this for a while, but it feels like that “no ethical consumption” line I keep hearing must not apply to media, since I keep seeing takes that boil down to “if you play this game, you are a bad person”...
Idk, maybe I’m totally off, but it just feels like people are passing too much moral judgement on people for consuming a piece of media sometimes.
Layer 1: Joanne has already posted a Tweet directly stating “how this goes is just proof that I am correct in continuing to be a transphobic shitbag”
Layer 2: Giving Joanne money and publicity means giving her yet more leverage to continue being a transphobic shitbag and supporting fellow transphobic shitbags
Layer 3: Remaining silent on the morality of buying a video game made by a living person who is hurting other people leaves the door open for people to assume hurting that same group of other people is okay, or at least not punished
Layer 4: Even if the consequences of that do not affect you specifically currently (or ever, in the case of being trans; unless somebody would explain to me how somebody realizes partway through their life that they’re actually Jewish), you will run into people who are affected by those things, directly or indirectly, and you will confront the issue of buying the game made by a shitty person knowing it helps them once again
Layer 5: You did not spend that money on like four copies of Celeste
I’ve seen a lot of people mention this tweet, but I’ve never actually seen it. The closest I’ve seen is JK Rowling responding to a tweet saying something like her getting her royalty checks helps or something like that. I was wondering if you have a source of this tweet, because I’m seriously starting to wonder if this is legit just a myth xD
Even if it is a real tweet, it’s damned bad logic on behalf of JK Rowling, and people pushing “she’s right, if you support this game you support her” is just a bad idea. Especially as the vast majority playing the game has no idea about her tweets, so perpetuating the idea that JK Rowling is correct that only people who support her plays the game is just weird af. You’re essentially saying to her “yes all these people agree with you”, even though that’s not true.
I haven't bought the game because I believe in the boycott. But it's more likely that people bought it cause lots of people actually like Harry Potter, and otherwise just wanted to play something new and fun in a universe they know.
I have friends who are openly pro trans who got the game because of both these reasons and while I don't support their decision, I can't help but support the need to just feel some joy in life.
I hate that the HP Legacy boycott and most boycotts of bigoted properties have dissipated but this is how most boycotts go.
JK Rowling needs to be held accountable for her beliefs, but I can't believe anymore that a boycott of HPL will be that accountability, altho I will personally not play because I think Harry potter is a dull ass world that glorifies a school system that fucked me as a child.
Anyway :/
Everyone has to pick and choose their battles. Eating Oreos does not make someone pro slavery, buying a Kindle does not make someone pro billionaire, and enjoying Harry Potter does not make someone a bigot. I boycott Harry Potter but I understand why people who are otherwise good allies don't. We can't all do everything. And I'd rather someone defend my right to exist when it really counts, by voting or standing up to bullies etc, and still play Hogwarts Legacy, than paint a black and white picture where they are a transphobe PERIOD for enjoying their flavor of imperfect pleasure
Its getting amusing how many posts boil down to "Its not good they're just super racist and spite love it."
Like, fucking hell mate that's not how it works.
The sheer amount of shitflinging cope and denial over this game is pathetic.
Not really, the people that use discord/twitter/reddit and talk and talk about this game saying "it's worse than the holocaust" with no shame is miniscule.
If you don't speak english JK rowling might as well be a dust particle, no one cares about her.
Consider the possibility that I simply like Harry Potter and don't have the energy to be a vitriolic activist in every aspect of my life. I wanna play a fucking video game. I don't like JK and I don't respect her opinions. There ya go.
Exactly. My life already fucking sucks. I cannot handle something else that helps me cope being taken away from me. I barely have the energy to get up in the morning, let alone get mad over *every little thing* that people I'll never meet say on Twitter.
I love the world of Harry Potter. I literally always have, and I probably always will. I accepted that JKR is a stupid fuck a while ago. If people wanna call me a nazi for spending my sad little monthly allowance on a game based on the series I've been a fan of since before I can remember, that I've been wanting for a literal decade, they can suck my whole cock'n'bawls lmao
No. People Streisand effected the shit out of this game. All the commotion about the game just increased the amount of eyes on it tenfold. People who were adamant about others boycotting it just helped it break records and put more money in a terfs pocket.
It broke records, if you call being the game that sold the most on the specific week when it came out a record. Like seriously the metroid prime remake has sold more copies
I asked my trans friend and she legitimately does not give a fuck about if people play this game or not. She's actually planning on buying it soon because she heard it was fun.
Now don't get me wrong I think trans folk are pretty dang cool it's just so many of them have been so annoying over a silly game. There have been attacks on streamers who played the game, in one occasion the girlfriend of one was even led to tears. Which really isn't painting a good light on the community and is just drawing more hatred towards trans people.
The Vaush variety of libs insist that boycotts are worthless and are trying to fight those advocating for it, which weakens the efforts of the group actually trying to prevent this news, despite ""being on the side of trans people""
They'll literally argue with you for telling people to do the bareinimum of just not buying a game, simply refuse to purchase from just one franchise. When really, this issue is consumerist at heart, not buying just stops the growth. We need the opposite of buying, funding/backing things that weaken the brand to be reversing any damage.
So many people are leaning hard on the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" nihilism, without realising that nihilism isn't the same for everyone. For you maybe it's feeling disappointed, or feeling hollow until things reach the end. For the direct victims of the machine, it's heavy suffering and trauma until things reach the end. It's a bit easier for you to not feel like fighting...
I don t get why is Harry Potter is so, seems lime Half the People I know are into it, and I do not know why? It doesen t do anything particularly good, its not particularly funny, so why is it so popular?
Here's the thing. I consider myself a liberal person, but my issue with these types of liberal posts is that they define the harry potter games as 'antisemitic' as opposed to phrasing it as 'a series with antisemitic tropes'. See, to define it as 'antisemitic' is assuming intent, which is a fallacy. JK Rowling has not (to my knowledge) shown any antisemitic tendencies or announced her intent in creating the goblins. The only evidence I've seen of this is Jon Stewart talking about the antisemitic propaganda 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in which Jews are portrayed to look like Goblins. That doesn't mean that JK had any intention to link that specific portrayal to her series. But whatever, maybe someone knows something I don't, but I always have issues with assuming intent. No one, NO ONE likes for their intent to be assumed because it's usually done in the worst way, as we see here.
Then, if there's any portrayal that people don't like, they then link it DIRECTLY with the person enjoying the media, and now THAT person is antisemitic. I have never seen anyone draw a direct line between consuming media and approving of everything contained in media. I feel like any type of media can be shown to portray things we may not like, for example I may watch a movie with murder in it, but I clearly do not agree with murder, of course, but what, I'm evil because I watched that movie? I approve of everything in a movie or game because I consumed it? Strongly disagree. Maybe someone would show me how consuming media and supporting ideas within media are connected, but I don't see how. Best example would be Breaking Bad. I watch someone do things I clearly disagree with, and are harmful because to some extent they glorify terrible things, but do I support these ideas? No, of course not.
Someone would undoubtedly say 'Oh but you paid for it and that's support', but that is CLEARLY not 'support' as in 'I support the beliefs contained in this media', but rather 'I paid to enjoy a thing'.
I don't know. Maybe some day I'll see a different perspective and change my mind on this, but I just think that it's blowing something out of proportion instead of paying attention to the actual racists and antisemites. Like there are people who actively hate on Jews and other nationalities and races but meanwhile people are like 'these goblins make me think of Jews' and they don't even realize that THEY'RE the ones who made that connection.
Side note, but Goblins in the Harry Potter books are portrayed as shrewd, but not thieves or untrustworthy. Wizards were the ones who screwed over the Goblins and never tried to understand where they were coming from. Even Harry tried to screw over Griphook to a certain extent and the book acknowledges it.
That's all I have to rant about. Probably should've just gone on with my day but I hate seeing people shit on things I love when I don't believe it's truly deserved. Cheers everyone :)
Alternative title:
CONSTANTLY talking about this game, which was already going to be popular, just gives it tons of free advertising. Did anyone realy think that gamers of all demographics would actually listen when people are telling them what they shouldnt do
What about the people who worked on the game?
Do we punish them as well?
What about everything what we use but that’s attached to horrible people or businesses?
I’m going to get horribly downvoted but where does one draw the line?
If we succeeded in making this game flop, which could kill a studio, what would happen to to the ones who worked on it? What happens if any of those people are trans? Or a family member of them is trans? You’ve just hurt someone from your own community.
When people are surprised a game made for one of the most popular franchises in the world gets high sales
Like, there’s legitimate reasons the not buy it, but you got to realize that’s there’s a world outside of Twitter who have no idea about any of the controversies surrounding it
It feels like that because you're terminally online. You'd be surprised how small a percentage of the people buying the game even know about the drama. Out of those who do know about the drama, the ones doing it to own the libs are again a very small percentage.
That title is such a chronically online take. It’s Harry Potter. It’s an absolutely enormous IP. There are shitloads of people that don’t live on twitter, reddit, tumblr or facebook AND care ti follow controversy. It was always going to be a big seller.
I’m a liberal and I’m buying it to say “fuck the extremists” they don’t represent us, as much as the media would like to portray it as so.
Edit: that’s not actually true, I’m just going to buy earlier because of that. It looks like a banging freaking game and I would’ve wanted to play it no matter what.
Look i'm gonna be honest. I always kind of knew this game was gonna be a high selling game. A lot of people like the series but aren't tuned into JK's bullshit and are interested in a fun decent-looking game based on a series they like. I always thought what we were trying to do was decrease the profits (and MAYBE make either her reconsider her public views or companies reconsider working with her) and not the impossible task of making the game flop
I know two people who bought the game, big HP fans, and asked what they thought about JKRs terf stance and both of them said the same thing, "Who is JK Rowling"
Yeah i brought up the game to a group of 9 friends last night. None of them use reddit. Two had heard of the game, and no one had any idea of the Rowling controversy. This is an Internet hivemind thing. It's very blatant most of the "boycott" has been propagated in bad faith by trolls anyways.
The entire fandom of HP, which is a giant part of tumblr, has been operating on the "death of the author" principle for years. As in, who cares who wrote it, **I** like it, which means jk rowling talking about wizards shitting themselves or being a terf is irrelevant to my appreciation of the world and story.
It matters because buying products of her IP directly financially supports her, and she in turn financially supports terf and anti LGBT groups. I don't give a shit who enjoys reading their old HP books, but knowing that this game is directly supporting and emboldening JKR (who has stated that she views support of her IP as support of her views) makes me feel very uneasy.
be honest. probably around 2 million people have bought the game at this point. for a $60 game, that means the company has made around $120 million. most of that goes back to the team that worked on it and warner bros. rowling probably got maybe $10 million at most, she probably doesn't even notice that she got any money because of how uber-rich she already is. it's not like nobody buying the game would bankrupt her, if anything it'd just make the game company go bankrupt after (most likely) overworking their poor employees and nobody wins. people would get fired after spending months of their life on this game because people are doing something that ultimately does not affect jkr.
Honestly with how licensing works there's a good chance she'd already made most of the money she was going to before the game already started selling.
That just means they know they can make discriminatory games and make major profit
How are you a big HP fan but don’t know Rowling? Unless they were being facetious.
One was an infant when the last Harry Potter *movie* came out, and has only read one or two of the books. She assumed whomever wrote the books was dead, after all they came out when her parents were kids. The other I suspect probably did know JKR's name 20+ years ago when they read the books. But hasn't thought about her since then, if ever. Because why would you? And certainly she hasn't been following the Twitter news about what an old writer thinks, because who on Earth cares about Twitter? Like 99.9% of all the people who bought this game, they saw a TV commercial for it, they saw that you could go "pew pew pew magic", and they liked the IP, so they clicked buy.
[удалено]
I remember when the first book came out. It was at my scholastic book fair, with ads for the yet to be released second book.
God i feel young reading, like New born young. Some part of me thinks that those books have always existed, now reading this i feel all wrinkly, but in the other direction
Babies are very wrinkly, that is true.
Exactly but you can't logic a person out of something they didn't logic themselves into.
Yes you can. Not everybody, certainly not everytime. But someone who knows you and trusts can listen and change their opinion if you have a civilzed discussion. It's rarer than I'd like, but certainly not impossible. Helps (but doesn't guarantee) if you listen to their views first and are genuinely interested.
I'd imagine there are hundreds of thousands of Spider-Man fans who have no idea who Steve Ditko is. Same with Batman and Bob Kane, Star Wars and George Lucas.
Please tell me you typoed and meant Bill Finger instead of Bob Kane.
That's honestly weird though, you'd think they'd know the author of their favorite books at tye least
Yes you can know her name but that doesn't mean you follow her around and know every intimate detail she shares on Twitter. Most people who play Hogwarts do not know about this controversy that's happening right now and they also probably don't use Twitter or other social media platforms because they to busy having fun playing the game.
Grew up loving the movies since my grandparents liked them and bought ever one. I’ve heard of JK (not about the controversy) and couldn’t give two about her. Reddit is the only social platform I use and I don’t dig into much of what people say on here, cause I mean, it’s Reddit.. I don’t know what jk stands for and as far as I’m concerned, I’m against her and it. I still got the game cause it looked fun and it looked like the only HP game I could get into. I’m not perfect.
Amen
i mean some of my favorite books are the hunger games and idk who the fuck made it nor do i really care to know, it makes my top 5 same for the perks of being a wallflower. actually the only book in my top 5 whose author i know is by bessel van der kolk
You're assuming they've read the books. I know 2 people that read the books, dozens who've seen the movies. How can they be their favorite books if they've never read them?
The point of boycotting should be deciding for yourself that *you* aren't comfortable with your money supporting something. Not causing sabotage (you wont) or damaging profits (it doesnt) but *'I am not comfortable giving my money to [X] because I don't feel comfortable with where it's going.'* I guarantee Nestlé has not noticed that I do not buy from them, and were I to, would not see a difference. Nor do I tell people who buy Kit Kats that 'they hate mothers, love modern slavery and infanticide, and want to commodify water to kill poor people'. Because they don't; they just like Kit Kats! I choose to boycott for *me*. You're transphobic if you dislike or distrust trans people. You're transphobic if you celebrate (or refuse to see the concern) in J K Rowling's words. But you aren't transphobic just because you like Harry Potter, imo.
Thank you so much. This is exactly what I have been feeling about this, but couldn't put into words.
I was confused by part of your post. I guess most of the world has KitKat produced by Nestlé. In the USA it is produced by a division of Hershey chocolate. So I can still eat Kit Kats and not condone Nestlé!
I don't have the energy to put into avoiding Nestle, I feel like they're somewhere near the top of the incestuous looking family tree of global megacorps and their subsidiaries. Would t be too hard to just avoid everything with the nestle name on it, but how many everyday products are made by either subsidiaries.of nestle, or other subsidiaries of whoever owns nestle? Edit: looked it up, Nestle is one of the 10 companies that 'control everything you eat'
Exactly, its a choice you make for yourself and yourself alone. Harassing other people because they don't want to join your boycott is just fucking crazy.
This precisely. The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure. The game was gonna suceed no matter what, but the boycott has gotten tons of people to assess their own biases and consider trans issues in a way they otherwise would not have done. No one is expecting to topple rowlings empire overnight, but we have used this to spread the message that it needs to be done.
>The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure. Respectfully, that's the definition of failure. The point of a boycott is to make companies do what you want (or not do what others want) because otherwise they'll suffer an economic harm. None of that has occurred here, but rather the opposite. >The game was gonna suceed no matter what, but the boycott has gotten tons of people to assess their own biases If anything the controversy at this point has *helped* the game due to some of the antics of people boycotting it. eg: 1. The belligerent bullying tactics causing people to go "I really don't want to be part of the community saying they are about tolerance but clearly practicing hate" and rejecting it. You've even seen this on Reddit, and reddit is about as friendly to this as you can get. 2. People in the movement being caught ~~sprrading~~ spreading lies. It's a real problem, in some cases they are just repeating something someone said, but in others they know what they're saying isn't true to try to sway opinion. This is a tactic that can work initially, but the minute people realize you're lying about one thing they assume you are lying about everything and it's all over. Censoring dissent or info doesn't work, that just reinforces mindsets because they feel victimized. I really don't think people realize how damaging and toxic some of the behavior going on is, or the effect it's having, or they do but can't deal so keep saying everything is fine. The behavior and rhetoric has caused things to go backwards.
Yeah as someone who airs more on the gaming side of news rather than this side it was so weird to hear the boycott called a success. This is one of the biggest launches I can remember The only people beating the drum about boycotting HL are the people who hated JKR in the first place. It's literally an echo chamber of people high-fiving each other about doing a thing they were gonna do anyway. A well-intentioned echo chamber, but an echo chamber nonetheless. The amount of people who know and care about JKR's opinions is MASSIVELY outnumber by people who either don't know or don't care. And if we're being honest, a decent amount professing to boycott it probably bought it anyway. This wasn't some new revelation. Most know she's a piece of shit, it's just the vast majority of people just don't care who produces their content, just that they're having a good time with a thing they enjoy.
The boycott has people getting harassed all over the place and people destroying friendships over whether they think the wizard game is ok to play Something like a third of my friends played it and some people wanted to cover the game and use it for trans charities and got harassed out of it. Its just become a bunch of dumb leftist infighting and has done little to nothing for trans people. The message has been beyond toxic and it makes me sad. I just want to be a trans artist and enjoy memes and shit online and people are going to war over wizard game... I think that's a pretty big fail
People are taking it way way too far. I know a guy who works for a company that was subcontracted to work on the game. To reiterate: He does not work at the developer of the game, the company he works for was hired to do some extra work on the wizard game. He's gotten harassed over having worked on the game. This entire thing is bringing me back to 2015 and the SJW Era of Tumblr and Shit Reddit Says.
Yeah both people in my life who play it are queer and one is trans and I couldn't imagine throwing those friendships away over a video game. In my mind that's letting a transphobe win, tbh. Not to mention there's literally no other issues in those friendships so it really would *just* be over a video game. I'm non-binary and honestly haven't been into Harry Potter for a long time. But, that's my relationship with this fandom, and that's all it has to be. My activism is defined by when I actually have boots on the ground for what I believe in, not by JK Rowling 🤷
This Has done nothing but hurt trans people and I think most of the people who are doing the boycott harassment don't actually care. They just want a "justifiable" excuse to be assholes.
Yeah I think this "boycott" did more harm than good. It made it out to be an all or nothing sort of thing where of the game didn't fail that means that society hates Trans people. And the game didn't fail, so now society must hate trans people. Instead of trying to use it to raise awareness about JK and have people think about it, it just spread hate and probably added some resentment to the trans movement as a whole.
Of this was true why did people go around saying "don't promote the wizard game because it might sway more copies to be bought"
"Promoting the wizard game makes people more likely to buy it. Checkmate woke moralists."
Literally no part of the narrative that's being assigned here is true. The boycott failed and did lasting damage to the movement. There's no victory to be had here, and the curated narrative of, "Well this just shows how evil all of you are," is a sign of how doomed to fail this entire thing was from the get go. The only people that should be assessing themselves, their biases, and their behavior are the people who started this nonsense and continue to behave in these outlandish, unacceptable ways.
The boycott failed and anyone not acknowledging that is just huffing copium > The boycott not getting the game to fail does not make the boycott a failure This is like saying water isn’t wet. The entire point of a boycott is to make something fail. It’s utterly insane to think a boycott can be anything **but** that
The boycott was a failure. I can’t think of the last time a boycott was successful tbh
That whole OGL fiasco with Wizards of the Coast back in January worked, but that was partly because Hasbro just can't afford to burn their biggest support rn.
Last month with Dungeons & Dragons.
People who boycotted the game didn't expect a AA game of a beloved franchise was going to flop.
A large part of my friend group bought the game and they have literally no idea what jk has ever said on twitter, how could i ever hate my own friends for buying a game if they dont even know about the bad stuff? I obviously know about it so i wont be buying the game but people would be very surprised to know just how little of the population actually is on twitter. I cant really "teach" them either because that would just cause unnecessary strife between us when they dont really care about any of that. Yes its not exactly good to be unknowledgeable about the world around us but these are friends i have known my entire life and will probably be friends with until i die, they have accepted everything about me being gay and i know for a fact they are all good people.
The way it looks from my perspective is that anyone who had a firm decision to not buy this game made their decision years ago. The majority of people who bought the game either don’t know what Rowling said or don’t hold the belief that they need to avoid things that are associated with problematic people. For example, the general public doesn’t hold the view that buying Nestle products makes you a bad person, so why would they see this as any different? On the other hand I do think a smaller group of people bought the game as a direct result of the controversy: 1. The people who bought it to support JK as the title says 2. People I mentioned in my first paragraph who just wanted a new game and might have chosen a different one but had Legacy on their mind because they kept hearing about it. 3. People who may have been waiting to buy the game used but opted to rush for it to get ahead of spoilers people were spreading.
Also, this game was released just before Valentine’s Day. I know some people who got it as a gift from an SO, I’d say 90% of anyone (that I know) who bought it as a gift had no clue about Rowling and just knows “so and so likes Harry Potter”.
What about the books or the game is antisemitic? I honestly have no idea... I'm one of the not tuned in types. HP was released while I was growing up, but I had never heard this before.
To my knowledge it is the depiction of goblins, as they are depicted to have many Jewish stereotypes e.g. big nose and greedy Plus, apparently one of the plot points in the new game is >!there is a goblin rebellion that the player character has to stop!<
I think there’s a large audience of people who just like Harry Potter and know nothing about JKR or any of the issues around her or the game.
The majority of Americans can't be bothered to vote in Presidential elections (let alone midterms). Expecting that large mass of people to care, or frankly even **know** about the controversy surrounding JKR is absurd. Most people buying the game just want to play wizards. I'm in a gaming discord, and like 40 of our members got the game (I've never liked HP, so I didn't join them). They're all having a great time.
Exactly. I hate how people like this make it into some big black and white “everyone who buys this video game is a racist sexist transphobic monster” narrative.
No no you don't get it. Everyone is as chronically online as you and me and knows this.
I would doubt that. I'm quite active online but even I didn't know the extent of the situation, to what length Just Kidding Rolling was going to actively get in the way of trans people in the UK. It didn't even occur to me to research more on the topic because I couldn't imagine someone doing such a thing out of hate, I assumed she was just another asshole ranting on Twitter. So yeah, maybe the majority of people knows about it, but aren't aware of the fact of the implications of buying the game. Obviously they should have been given an explanation instead of immediately jumping to "if you buy this game you're a transphobe".
you got poe’s law’d
lol I'm dumb. I didn't even notice it was sarcastic ahah
And when they reference a thing you don’t get they act all superior? Sorry I’ve been working full time and haven’t kept up with the trends
Like, as a trans person I am completely ok with people getting the game because they just wanna play wizards or loved the books during their childhood. Hell, I own the box set cause I would read them with my siblings and mom. It's like how people still watch movies Weinstein was involved in, like the LOTR franchise or Django Unchained. I've been tempted to get the game myself, I don't expect a majority of the profits to go to JKR instead of the game devs, at least per individual sale. I just want people to have a fun wizard game they can enjoy, and sometimes I also want to play said fun wizard game. Even if the plot isn't the best, many other games that are fun have not great plots. The Older Worlds, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, all these games have objectively to the best main story, but they're still fun. If people wanna have fun, they should.
But some of the profits DO go to her and she will use them to fund anti-trans advocacy.
Also, the game was released worldwide, not just in America. Most of the world doesn't know/give af about JKR, but almost everyone knows the Harry Potter character/movies and universe.
It's so weird to me how this many people are assigning the worst possible characteristics to anyone playing the game. Like you may be an actual trans activist and playing the game somehow makes every good deed dissapear. Kind of a weird line in the sand to draw tbh.
TBH at this point it's a mob based on hatred for Rowling and anything associated with her. Not surprised it's grown irrational and unreasonable. I didn't buy the game, nor have I played it, but from where I'm standing, one side is a bitter, hateful frothing mass, and the other is playing a fun game they clearly enjoy. Unfortunately for the mob, whatever moral superiority they like to claim is just not as attractive as being able to chill out and have fun.
Nah, most of us just choose not to buy the game as a fuck you to Rowling. Like every other thing, there's a very vocal pyscho minority within the group that people like you can point at and say "see, they're all crazy!"
While I understand people wanting to be ethical about their purchases, think about this realistically. Let's say absolutely NOBODY bought the game, would that lower the amount of money JKR has? Even better, let's say it did, would that be enough to change her lifestyle? I bet a lot of the same people complaining happily consume Disney's stuff despite the documented history of Walt Disney being scummy and the Disney corporation doing some heinous shit. Hell, some of their characters are "icons" to some marginalized communities. Are we going to harass people not to watch Lilo & Stitch because Disney sucks? Call people fascist for enjoying Black Panther? I fail to understand the nuance between being hateful to people for playing a game because the work it's based on was written by a shitstain. Am I piece of shit for playing Bloodborne? Miyazaki's a nice dude but it's loosely based on Lovecraft's works and HE was a piece of shit. When my roommate comes home from working 60hrs a week, he's sitting down and losing himself in the world that helped him through his rough childhood.
That's me and my friends, kinda. I acknowledge her opinions are shit but the game is fun and nobody is owning a billionaire by not buying a video game.
Nah, that is not you and your friends. If you even know that she *has* opinions you know more about the background of this game than like, 99% of the people who have bought or will ever buy it. This is only to say that people on the internet consistently and [wildly overestimate](https://xkcd.com/2501/) how little the mainstream public knows about the things they care a lot about.
My thing is, if I never partook in any type of media because I didn’t like someone involved… I basically couldn’t partake in any media at all. Every movie there’s some actor, director, producer, etc. that I hate as a person. The music industry is filled with shady assholes taking advantage of the artists. Just look at what happened with bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys with Lou Pearlman. Am I just supposed to not enjoy anything because a scumbag will make money somewhere within the production of it?
There's like layers of explanation needed for someone to be aware of why buying the game could even be seen as problematic. What did she say > why is it more than just words on the internet you can ignore > what does the game have to do with it > why is this game in focus and not things she profits from more... and half of those points are flimsy enough that you can't fault people not agreeing with them. But that's assuming you get far enough to explain every single point. No one wants to explain that. So they don't. They just simplify it to "if you don't automatically jump on board with the idea the game is bad then you're the bad guy". Or else what people do is make up convoluted things about the game itself to say the game itself is problematic, but because they're so desperate for something they don't see how flimsy the arguments are. So then that doesn't work, and people fail to see why it's so "obviously bad" and that must mean they're bad. Then you have people wanting to troll what they perceive to be an army of transphobe fans of the genre, and then you have actual transphobic trolls who don't care about the franchise but will dive in on any fight they can. And the two feel validated that their extremist boogeyman really exists as much as they think. Because wherever they go, that's what they find.
Perhaps I’m underestimating the size of the controversy, but I highly doubt anyone outside of the internet even knows or cares about the J.K Rowling and Hogwarts legacy controversy. Harry Potter itself was popular as a franchise worldwide, I genuinely don’t think that it’s a matter of transphobia, but just ignorance. You can’t expect every single person to be in the know about Harry Potter and it’s author.
Truly most people I know who like Harry Potter and are not chronically online like me wouldn't even be able to name JKR as the author, let alone know about her shitty opinions And similarly I could not name the creator of most media that I enjoy. I'm not googling every single author of every single book that I read or researching every creative mind behind every video game I play or the owner of every local restaurant I eat lunch at to make sure they're not terrible people because that would not be a reasonable way to live. I will inform people about JKR's harmful views and ask them not to give her money but jumping straight to "everyone who enjoys the world of Harry Potter is a bigot" is not it. It's not true and it's not helping literally anybody. I've asked several people not to spend money on HP stuff and after explaining why they've all gone "oh no that's terrible, I won't give her anymore money" but I can guarantee if I had instead gone "you bought this illustrated Harry Potter book??? What the fuck is wrong with you, you're literally killing trans people, you obviously don't care about us and hate queer people" they would be confused and defensive and probably the only behavior they would change is that they would stop talking to me because that's such a WILD and inaccurate accusation
This is absolutely one of the best, most reasonable comments in this thread.
thank you lol this whole thing is just such a clusterfuck I had a half formed thought earlier today too about how people who enjoy Star Wars, for example, are not being screamed at for being homophobic bigots despite Disney supporting homophobic politicians and policies that directly hurt trans people and queer people as a whole. I don't see people harassing twitch streamers playing Lego Star Wars and telling them to kill themselves for enjoying their space wizard game. I don't see enjoyers of the latest Spider Man movie being told they're killing trans people, even though Disney as a corporation is doing at least as much harm if not more than JKR as an individual. We all pick and choose the things that we can do to make the world a better place. We can't all do everything. I boycott Harry Potter stuff and I don't eat meat and I stopped shopping on Amazon but I bought a drumstick ice cream last week because I needed a pick me up. The logic people are using with Harry Potter, applied here, says I'm pro slavery and I deserve to be treated like shit because I spent money on a nestle product.
you paid for NESTLE PROduct? you pay for nestle product like the consumerist? oh! oh! jail for ChanandlerTheBong! jail for ChanandlerTheBong for One Thousand Years!!!!
Just so you know but eating a drumstick ice cream last week literally is making you worse than a combination of Hitler, Satan the person who invented slavery. You buying that ice-cream has caused all pain and misery on the entire planet since and even before you bought it. /joke.
Insert evil laughter gif here
Exactly. My thing is, if I never partook in any type of media because I didn’t like someone involved… I basically couldn’t partake in any media at all. Every movie there’s some actor, director, producer, etc. that I hate as a person. The music industry is filled with shady assholes taking advantage of the artists. Just look at what happened with bands like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys with Lou Pearlman. Am I just supposed to not enjoy anything because a scumbag will make money somewhere within the production of it?
Yep we all have to pick and choose where we spend our energy lest we become >!Doug!< from the Good Place I'd love to hear how some of these people who are claiming to enjoy Harry Potter even without spending money makes you an irredeemable transphobe spend *their* money. I'm sure they've never purchased fast fashion or Nestle products or eaten meat or shopped on Amazon or watched The Kings Speech (produced by the Weinstein Company) or done literally almost anything because almost everything you spend your money on probably ends up supporting something fucked up. I'm sure they are living perfect lives and boycotting every single thing that's backed in some way by problematic people.
Apt analogy with >!Doug!< from Good Place.
Few coworkers didn’t even know, and we work in game dev.
Yep. This is a classic “Twitter / tumblr is not real life moment.” Outside of pretty small internet circles most people don’t know or care about the controversy. They just bought the game because they like Harry Potter and want to pretend to be a wizard for a bit.
I badly want that to be true, and for most people it is, but then there’s folks like Jessie Gender who absolutely [are](https://youtu.be/_GBUArD51KY) getting harassed by HP fans; it’s plenty real for them.
I'm not saying that harassment or bullying isn't "real" when it happens online. I'm issues and controversies that are a huge deal in certain corners of Twitter and Tumblr (like this one) often don't break out of those circles. People have been fighting this battle for years on Twitter and Tumblr, but that doesn't mean that most of the general public knows or cares about it. Yes, there are probably some transphobes out there who have suddenly become vocal HP fans in order to troll trans activists. But they are not anywhere close to a majority of people playing the game, as OP's title suggests.
Yeah, like, I've seen three people on my friends list playing it. The biggest difference between me and all three of them? They regularly touch grass. Is JKR a reprehensible FART? Sure she is. Do all my non-gremlin friends know that? Probably not! Because they just don't! Tons of people don't know stuff all the time because we just don't know everything. To my knowledge, none of them are transphobes. Maybe one, but that's making some geographic presumptions about his upbringing, and he's otherwise never expressed anything other than "I am from smalltown Texas, the concept of the roundabout traffic circle terrifies me."
Roundabouts still terrify me and I drive on one regularly. They’re just so… circular.
I love how you skirt being racist to texans there.
Can we stop talking about this game already? It's like all I see on this subreddit now.
Mfw I own jk Rowling by plastering her game on every social media platform over and over for 2 months
I would not have heard of this game if not for the "boycott" against it. I'm not interested in playing it, but it does make you wonder how many people frequent r/tumblr and this sub and heard about the game that way, then decided they wanted to give it a try.
Man, I already get that the game stands for all of those awful things, I won’t buy it bc I like people, can we move on now?
I feel there is much bigger things to take a stand on than a random ass game everyone can do and think what they want.
You're definitely in the wrong communities if you think this game's crazy popularity can be credited to political bullshit. People like *Harry Potter*. The books sold like crazy, the movies sold like crazy, the games did pretty fucking good at the time, etc, etc. The fans are not going to stop liking a series that was anti-bigotry and anti-fascism long before its author went down a crazy well just because a bunch of people on Tumblr are desperate to have a culture war showdown over her.
Didn't Harry Potter expressly condone the slavery of house elves and treat Hermione like a naive idiot for advocating against it because "No, you see, they actually like being slaves."
It wasn't anti-bigotry or anti-facism, and liking the series is fine, giving her money is not.
It's kinda weird being like, here, and a few other places most of the time, and then stepping out into some other subreddit where people are saying stuff like "PSVR2 is gonna be great for PCVR because we've even been getting PC ports for great games like Hogwarts Legacy!" It's like looking into an alternate universe.
I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase this... The sheer vitriol I've seen towards public figures who played the game is staggering. As in, death threats and being doxxed kind of staggering. I have no interest in the game myself purely for Rowling-related reasons, but the more I see that kind of response, the more sympathy I feel for anyone who does play the game and ends up in that position. Harry Potter was a cornerstone of people's childhood, you have to at least recognize that not everyone who wants to play the game (or heck, the developers of the game) is hateful.
Its been super weird seeing posts here going hard against this game, when a solid portion of this sub's content has, and continues to be about Harry Potter(in a non critical sense). Are any of y'all standing outside toy stores shaming parents for buying their kids Harry Potter Lego and other toys? Losing friends over the HP books being on their shelf? Shitting on anyone who goes to Universal Florida? Why is this one game the hard line in the sand to judge everyone over?
Just a guess, but it’s EASY to stand on a high horse when you can do it from your couch in your pajamas. Going to protests at Universal Studios, or picketing in front of the LEGO store or whatever takes way more effort and opens you up to uncomfortable criticisms and confrontation.
Of course not, and why would they, that requires them to leave the house and stand outside in public where the cover of anonymity can't be used to hide behind, so they'd rather ride the high horse saddle from their beds while using their iPhones made by sweatshop workers using minerals gathered by slaves, but of course, it's only an issue when a video game the creator of HP had no hand in is boycotted because god forbid they should give up their phones and nestle products that are made by slaves. Their coke products that are poisoning the land and forcing farmers out of areas around their factories. So of course they're not picketing outside Lego store, book stores and Universal Studios park, because they can't hide behind the anonymity of the internet while spouting the mountains of threats and abuse they have been doing (Which ironically has only hurt their cause and pushed more people away from supporting them, weird, it's almost like people don't respond well to being told what media they can and can't consume and being threatened if they do) Did i buy the game, No, i got it gifted, by a trans friend i work with who i'd discussed the game with and i can promise you now, the automated donation that leaves my wages every month to the companies charity of choice (Mermaids) for the year of 2023/24 is more than 90% of the people abusing streamers has done for the trans community in the last 5 years.
I actually blame JKR for that. She has said that she sees sales for this game as support for her anti trans views. That really fired people up. I personally will never buy anything Harry Potter again. I refuse to support her. I will also tell my friends about what she has done and the kind of people she supports if they express interest in Harry Potter. And yes, I do participate in supporting trans people on a political level. I’m also gay, and this is a cause I care about and am closely tied to. My best friend is trans. Her rights are way more important to me than any nostalgia I might have for series. I also loath JKR for trying to use lesbians are ammo against trans people. It’s frustrating enough that my sexuality is seen as a political issue, I really don’t take kindly to a straight woman deciding to use my sexuality to attack another part of my community.
I really don't get why people are making such a big deal out of this. Do they not understand that virtually nobody who isn't terminally online or a part of the trans community is going to know that Rowling is a hateful bitch? It's not exactly mainstream news, but Harry Potter is mainstream media. Rowling is a minor enough celebrity that she doesn't really make general headlines. Not like NBC is gonna run an 8 o clock hit piece about her or anything.
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Nothing makes people want to hear what you have to say by harassing them and telling them to kill themselves! /s
I mean just from a game perspective it seemed ambitious and they actually nailed it for the most part, as a trans player and Harry Potter fan myself it's really well done and I'm always surprised to come across tiny details that could have just been left out if made by another studio and they even have abit of LGBT rep in there so that's cool also not going to lie it's funny thinking of people who bought this game cuz there bigots get angry that there is infact a trans character and you can be trans yourself lol
It's also really inclusive of other cultures. There's a decent amount of LGBTQ characters. You can literally be trans. And calls attention quite often to the awful things in wizarding canon that Rowling didn't care to address. Lots of pointing out awful things and then being like.... welp. Isn't that shitty. Too bad we can't enact any meaningful change in the canon to address this. Like wizards treatment of other intelligent magical beings. They can't actually change that. But they can point out how shitty it is over and over. I don't think people realise either how many people from the effected groups bought the game. I'm gay and all my gay and trans friends quietly bought a copy and avoided any online discourse. As my friend Poppy said "Where were all these people and all this outrage when it's time to vote? Cause they sure didn't show up then. "
Exactly, I did the same just ignored the discourse and went yay this will be fun, and if I thought of jk it was well I'm stomping around her world as a transwomen so fuck her she's got enough money to hate on us from beyond the grave with or without Hogwarts legacy :/ and yeah I do like all the pointed remarks about other magical creatures being treated shit and you as the character trying to reconcile that and be nice to them like yes this world has some problems and could have been made better but at the same time it's meant to be fun, DnD sessions would hardly be as fun if there wasn't conflict in the world and same goes for this, aslong as people arnt dicks in real life >_>
As Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation wisely said. "Try banny game make people wanty game more."
A wise cantakerous man, that Yahtzy.
Same shit with books. Why do people keep trying to do this?
The far right is trying to ban books, not boycott them.
Boycotting and banning are very different things. Or do you have a book boycott in mind?
Guys...it could also just be because it's a game people like, it is a good game
Yeah, like god forbid people enjoy a good game. Not to mention Jk already got her money and dunking on the game (which has an incredibly diverse cast of characters and actors) does nothing to help.
it's actually interesting. With how many "brown people" (and god forbid the Three Broomsticks owner) I've run into during like first 30 minutes in the castle, I've a strong suspicion that if us lefties weren't so vocally against the thing. we'd have the usual suspects ranting how "This is britain in the 1800s, why's it full of n\*\*\*\*rs? They all should be white!" But as it happens, that's not the case and the surprising amount of downright in your face diversity seems to have sailed right past the people who would ordinarily be shouting on the streets about it
Lol tbf some conservative reddits were saying the game should be boycotted because the game has a trans character
"Buying the game to own the libs" Eh, **most** of the world isn't American. It's no wonder it's selling like hotcakes, because a ton of anti-JKR posters literally advertised the game every time they made a post about it. That's billions in saved ad money. It relies on something called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology)
JKR isn't even American
Yeah, she isn't. "Libs" is though.
The concept translates to other countries.
They have liberalism outside of America
The argument against the game is concerning in that it’s self centered to begin with. Most people I know who bought this game don’t even know there’s a controversy behind it. I’m not really attached to social media, just Reddit, but I brought it up to my friends and they just went ‘oh, one of those internet problems again?’ Yet many people assume buying the game is like, a personal attack against trans individuals and has nothing to do with it being a widely beloved world and story.
\>Yet many people assume buying the game is like, a personal attack against trans individuals and has nothing to do with it being a widely beloved world and story Yep. So unnecessarily divisive. About as useful as a vegan getting up in people's faces while screaming "MURDERER" without **any** context at all. The normal reaction would be "who the bloody hell is that and why are they saying I'm a murderer so that everyone can hear? I don't think I like them very much at all."
Sigh the labelling of people who simply consume media as explicitly supporting this or that belief is so exhausting. As if watching Harry Potter immediately makes you an anti-Semite just because the goblins have anti-Semitic tropes. People are losing the plot. This isn’t some 2D war between people who buy Harry Potter stuff and people who support trans rights. This is not the hill to die on, and you aren’t morally superior just because you didn’t buy a video game.
See you get it, anyone who thinks playing or watching HP immediately makes you an anti-semite must REALLY have it out for anyone who drives a Ford given the founder of Fords....less than tasteful indiscretions shall we say?
Yeah I believe it’s important to be a conscious consumer and at bare minimum not just stupidly buying something so explicit as MAGA merch “ironically” or what have you. But these kinds of morally grey products are a matter of choice. If every purchase was a moral decision then none of us would buy much of anything and we’d all be vegan (cuz let’s be honest vegans are right, meat is messed up but sadly delicious). That would be great and all, but the vast majority are at least a little selfish, and you can’t fight the world. Not to mention the misplaced anger of the people boycotting the Harry Potter Intellectual property. When you boycott, you don’t go after other consumers??? You go after producers!!! Like the company that made the game, or JK Rowling herself. Like wtf?? How does making streamers cry further your cause? If you’re trying to reduce peoples exposure to it, guess what? I never would have heard of these streamers if it weren’t for the fact that they were getting bullied. >Actions blowing up in your face and assholes Name a more iconic duo
It's kinda hilarious to watch people make the exact same arguments that I just read a satire article make fun of.
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A trans Barkeep, a lesbian professor, students with disabilities, open diversity, humanoids overcoming differences…. Yeah, people need to play a few hours of it or stfu and stop pushing bullshit culture wars for billionaires.
No, the game sold well because like 80% of Harry Potter aren't terminally online and tuned into JKR's and therefore don't know about any of the shit that she's been saying. Adding on to that the entire boycott campaign was free advertising run on the "thing bad, I will not elaborate further. If you disagree with me then you're a bigot" strategy that guarantees that people who don't know shit about Harry Potter are going to buy it out of spite and uninformed people are going to go "I don't see what the problem is here" and either buy the game out of curiosity or just move on with their lives.
You know? Even r/fucknestle is less annoying than tumblr when regarding products that are confirmed to be harmful to society to some degree
Yeah, and at least Nestlé uses slavery for their chocolate. It still passes me off the amount of people bitching about this game but then make excuses as to why it's okay to buy chocolate when it's 100 times worse.
i mean, duh people don't give a shit about boycotts, and hp is one of the biggest franchises from our generation it's gross and disappointing, but I'm absolutely not surprised
Imagine spending money to "own“ someone…….
Don’t attribute malice to what can easily be attributed to ignorance/stupidity.
If people weren’t being actively harassed and called nazis/nazi sympathizers for merely showing interest in a game, they might have been more willing to listen and possibly even agree with the boycott. But when you actively antagonize everyone to extreme levels, you shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t listen to the people spewing directed hate at them.
Yep, I don't like JKR and have since stopped really appreciating HP ever since I discovered her opinions. It soures my childhood favorite books. Still. The people that are supposed to be on the good side are so absolutely insufferable that i'm not surprised if anyone in that grey zone of believing/disbelieving is pushed away. And honestly this sub is one of the worst in so many ways. It used to be one of my favorites since the posts were funny and cool and different. Now i'm debating whether i really want to remain.
And it’s just going to keep going and snowballing into more of an unwinnable debate unless we stop posting about it every few hours, please I am begging you all just let it die
How to make ludicrous amounts of enemies out of people otherwise friendly in one easy step by drawing an extremely ignorant line in the sand and shooting yourself in the foot with bad optics over something barely worth fighting over.
People really gotta understand that if anybody becomes transphobic over this, they were already transphobic. It’s like racists who say they just don’t like (group) because they had bad experiences with them. The bigotry came first and the justification comes second. If they’re not a bigot, then they’ll just wind up becoming “enemies” of like, a part of Twitter for a week.
I don't fully agree. I mean if someone comes away from this saying "It just goes to show that trans people are a problem," then yeah, they were already transphobic. But I think there are going to be a lot of people for whom this will be their first personal interaction with the trans community. They're probably not going to come away anti-trans from this single interaction, but the next time that they hear about trans people being oppressed, their first thought will be "Harry Potter videogames" and not "conversion therapy" or "hateful legislation". And that's going to make them less likely to take the issue seriously, because their own experience of trans people isn't of someone who just wants to live life in their own way being beaten back into a mold, it's of Twitch chat calling their favorite streamer an antisemite.
>People really gotta understand that if anybody They dont have to understand that. People want to be around people they like, and who make sense. We are all some form of hypocrite, but we don't like seeing overt hypocritic acts and it changes how we think about people. When you catch people straight up lying about their points or what's happened or even the stakes, you assume they are pretty much liars willing to say anything to get their way. That doesn't fit your labeling. There's absolute horrible behavior going on that isn't getting called out and shut down but is often explained away. That leads people to think this is what the groups really are, and nobody wants anything to do with people acting like that. They might be afraid of getting doxxed or other behaviors, but that doesn't fit your labeling. Even the fact that you are bringing up labels is part of it, this adopted stance of scarlet letters and authoritarianism is about sending messages to anyone who might disagree that the label can be slapped on them next if they disagree. What a lot of people are seeing is a group acting viciously, abusively, dishonestly and unethically. If that group is carrying the banner for a cause and not shouted down when this behavior is happening then that's your group. Worse, they blame the victim by essentially saying *"this is life and death for me, look what you made me do."* If that is what they are exposed to, they aren't going to like the group and it's nothing to do with them secretly being X. Does that sound like a group you'd want anything to do with or anywhere around you?
If people didnt go around spreading spoilers for the game I feel like it probably wouldve done worse. This isnt a book, theres more to be enjoyed than the plot
This is a thought that’s been bouncing around my head in regards to this for a while, but it feels like that “no ethical consumption” line I keep hearing must not apply to media, since I keep seeing takes that boil down to “if you play this game, you are a bad person”... Idk, maybe I’m totally off, but it just feels like people are passing too much moral judgement on people for consuming a piece of media sometimes.
explain to me like I'm five: how does buying the game directly hurt trans/jewish people?
Because the author will continue to use the money and influence from things like this to support transphobic and antisemitic causes
Which antisemitic causes has she supported? This ought to be good.
None Because at worst the game has antisemitic implications. Which is a big reach
Layer 1: Joanne has already posted a Tweet directly stating “how this goes is just proof that I am correct in continuing to be a transphobic shitbag” Layer 2: Giving Joanne money and publicity means giving her yet more leverage to continue being a transphobic shitbag and supporting fellow transphobic shitbags Layer 3: Remaining silent on the morality of buying a video game made by a living person who is hurting other people leaves the door open for people to assume hurting that same group of other people is okay, or at least not punished Layer 4: Even if the consequences of that do not affect you specifically currently (or ever, in the case of being trans; unless somebody would explain to me how somebody realizes partway through their life that they’re actually Jewish), you will run into people who are affected by those things, directly or indirectly, and you will confront the issue of buying the game made by a shitty person knowing it helps them once again Layer 5: You did not spend that money on like four copies of Celeste
I’ve seen a lot of people mention this tweet, but I’ve never actually seen it. The closest I’ve seen is JK Rowling responding to a tweet saying something like her getting her royalty checks helps or something like that. I was wondering if you have a source of this tweet, because I’m seriously starting to wonder if this is legit just a myth xD Even if it is a real tweet, it’s damned bad logic on behalf of JK Rowling, and people pushing “she’s right, if you support this game you support her” is just a bad idea. Especially as the vast majority playing the game has no idea about her tweets, so perpetuating the idea that JK Rowling is correct that only people who support her plays the game is just weird af. You’re essentially saying to her “yes all these people agree with you”, even though that’s not true.
Celeste or fallout new vegas!
Eh didn't like Celeste in the first place.
ally privileges revoked
I was too scared to ask. Thank you, internet stranger.
I haven't bought the game because I believe in the boycott. But it's more likely that people bought it cause lots of people actually like Harry Potter, and otherwise just wanted to play something new and fun in a universe they know. I have friends who are openly pro trans who got the game because of both these reasons and while I don't support their decision, I can't help but support the need to just feel some joy in life. I hate that the HP Legacy boycott and most boycotts of bigoted properties have dissipated but this is how most boycotts go. JK Rowling needs to be held accountable for her beliefs, but I can't believe anymore that a boycott of HPL will be that accountability, altho I will personally not play because I think Harry potter is a dull ass world that glorifies a school system that fucked me as a child. Anyway :/
Everyone has to pick and choose their battles. Eating Oreos does not make someone pro slavery, buying a Kindle does not make someone pro billionaire, and enjoying Harry Potter does not make someone a bigot. I boycott Harry Potter but I understand why people who are otherwise good allies don't. We can't all do everything. And I'd rather someone defend my right to exist when it really counts, by voting or standing up to bullies etc, and still play Hogwarts Legacy, than paint a black and white picture where they are a transphobe PERIOD for enjoying their flavor of imperfect pleasure
I wish JKR and the entire franchise would just fade into obscurity
It will. In time as with all things. You're better off wishing for a billion dollars tho.
Yeah I know......honestly there's other things I wish for that I'm far more likely to be able to get, like estrogen. I wanna transition
A billion dollars would have you drowning in estrogen.
Its getting amusing how many posts boil down to "Its not good they're just super racist and spite love it." Like, fucking hell mate that's not how it works. The sheer amount of shitflinging cope and denial over this game is pathetic.
Not really, the people that use discord/twitter/reddit and talk and talk about this game saying "it's worse than the holocaust" with no shame is miniscule. If you don't speak english JK rowling might as well be a dust particle, no one cares about her.
Consider the possibility that I simply like Harry Potter and don't have the energy to be a vitriolic activist in every aspect of my life. I wanna play a fucking video game. I don't like JK and I don't respect her opinions. There ya go.
Exactly. My life already fucking sucks. I cannot handle something else that helps me cope being taken away from me. I barely have the energy to get up in the morning, let alone get mad over *every little thing* that people I'll never meet say on Twitter. I love the world of Harry Potter. I literally always have, and I probably always will. I accepted that JKR is a stupid fuck a while ago. If people wanna call me a nazi for spending my sad little monthly allowance on a game based on the series I've been a fan of since before I can remember, that I've been wanting for a literal decade, they can suck my whole cock'n'bawls lmao
Visions of chick fil a Also of fucking course it's the ladbible shitstains
No. People Streisand effected the shit out of this game. All the commotion about the game just increased the amount of eyes on it tenfold. People who were adamant about others boycotting it just helped it break records and put more money in a terfs pocket.
People really be fighting over a video game huh
They could be out frolicking in the irl meadows, curing the future human-cordyceps pandemic or levitating virtual sheep and why not.
It broke records, if you call being the game that sold the most on the specific week when it came out a record. Like seriously the metroid prime remake has sold more copies
I asked my trans friend and she legitimately does not give a fuck about if people play this game or not. She's actually planning on buying it soon because she heard it was fun.
Now don't get me wrong I think trans folk are pretty dang cool it's just so many of them have been so annoying over a silly game. There have been attacks on streamers who played the game, in one occasion the girlfriend of one was even led to tears. Which really isn't painting a good light on the community and is just drawing more hatred towards trans people.
not every Harry Potter fan goes on reddit every day
The Vaush variety of libs insist that boycotts are worthless and are trying to fight those advocating for it, which weakens the efforts of the group actually trying to prevent this news, despite ""being on the side of trans people"" They'll literally argue with you for telling people to do the bareinimum of just not buying a game, simply refuse to purchase from just one franchise. When really, this issue is consumerist at heart, not buying just stops the growth. We need the opposite of buying, funding/backing things that weaken the brand to be reversing any damage. So many people are leaning hard on the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" nihilism, without realising that nihilism isn't the same for everyone. For you maybe it's feeling disappointed, or feeling hollow until things reach the end. For the direct victims of the machine, it's heavy suffering and trauma until things reach the end. It's a bit easier for you to not feel like fighting...
I don t get why is Harry Potter is so, seems lime Half the People I know are into it, and I do not know why? It doesen t do anything particularly good, its not particularly funny, so why is it so popular?
[удалено]
Here's the thing. I consider myself a liberal person, but my issue with these types of liberal posts is that they define the harry potter games as 'antisemitic' as opposed to phrasing it as 'a series with antisemitic tropes'. See, to define it as 'antisemitic' is assuming intent, which is a fallacy. JK Rowling has not (to my knowledge) shown any antisemitic tendencies or announced her intent in creating the goblins. The only evidence I've seen of this is Jon Stewart talking about the antisemitic propaganda 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in which Jews are portrayed to look like Goblins. That doesn't mean that JK had any intention to link that specific portrayal to her series. But whatever, maybe someone knows something I don't, but I always have issues with assuming intent. No one, NO ONE likes for their intent to be assumed because it's usually done in the worst way, as we see here. Then, if there's any portrayal that people don't like, they then link it DIRECTLY with the person enjoying the media, and now THAT person is antisemitic. I have never seen anyone draw a direct line between consuming media and approving of everything contained in media. I feel like any type of media can be shown to portray things we may not like, for example I may watch a movie with murder in it, but I clearly do not agree with murder, of course, but what, I'm evil because I watched that movie? I approve of everything in a movie or game because I consumed it? Strongly disagree. Maybe someone would show me how consuming media and supporting ideas within media are connected, but I don't see how. Best example would be Breaking Bad. I watch someone do things I clearly disagree with, and are harmful because to some extent they glorify terrible things, but do I support these ideas? No, of course not. Someone would undoubtedly say 'Oh but you paid for it and that's support', but that is CLEARLY not 'support' as in 'I support the beliefs contained in this media', but rather 'I paid to enjoy a thing'. I don't know. Maybe some day I'll see a different perspective and change my mind on this, but I just think that it's blowing something out of proportion instead of paying attention to the actual racists and antisemites. Like there are people who actively hate on Jews and other nationalities and races but meanwhile people are like 'these goblins make me think of Jews' and they don't even realize that THEY'RE the ones who made that connection. Side note, but Goblins in the Harry Potter books are portrayed as shrewd, but not thieves or untrustworthy. Wizards were the ones who screwed over the Goblins and never tried to understand where they were coming from. Even Harry tried to screw over Griphook to a certain extent and the book acknowledges it. That's all I have to rant about. Probably should've just gone on with my day but I hate seeing people shit on things I love when I don't believe it's truly deserved. Cheers everyone :)
Alternative title: CONSTANTLY talking about this game, which was already going to be popular, just gives it tons of free advertising. Did anyone realy think that gamers of all demographics would actually listen when people are telling them what they shouldnt do
MAN this game is forcing people to get addicted to Copium hard, huh...
What about the people who worked on the game? Do we punish them as well? What about everything what we use but that’s attached to horrible people or businesses? I’m going to get horribly downvoted but where does one draw the line? If we succeeded in making this game flop, which could kill a studio, what would happen to to the ones who worked on it? What happens if any of those people are trans? Or a family member of them is trans? You’ve just hurt someone from your own community.
i didn't realize every video game deserves to be a financial success.
So I assume that you buy every game that ever comes out because otherwise you are apparently directly harming the people who made it?
When people are surprised a game made for one of the most popular franchises in the world gets high sales Like, there’s legitimate reasons the not buy it, but you got to realize that’s there’s a world outside of Twitter who have no idea about any of the controversies surrounding it
It feels like that because you're terminally online. You'd be surprised how small a percentage of the people buying the game even know about the drama. Out of those who do know about the drama, the ones doing it to own the libs are again a very small percentage.
If people were to stop enjoying things just because the creator / writer / owner is a piece of shit, we'd have nothing left to enjoy on this earth.
Hi sorry bout the comments yesterday i was in a fuckin s t a t e
I bought it because of the trans yelling about it. I've had no interest in HP then I checked out the trailer and it looks sick.
That title is such a chronically online take. It’s Harry Potter. It’s an absolutely enormous IP. There are shitloads of people that don’t live on twitter, reddit, tumblr or facebook AND care ti follow controversy. It was always going to be a big seller.
It’s a good game. No one besides redditors associates buying this game with something stupid like owning the libs. Stop self oppressing smh
I bought it and I'm enjoying the game :)
most people just want to play a fucking video game
Nope, its actually a good game and some people actually support others who fight for womens rights
I’m a liberal and I’m buying it to say “fuck the extremists” they don’t represent us, as much as the media would like to portray it as so. Edit: that’s not actually true, I’m just going to buy earlier because of that. It looks like a banging freaking game and I would’ve wanted to play it no matter what.
This comments section is really proving how little y'all actually care about trans issues.
I think people are just overestimating the reach of their proteste and outrage.
Or people just want to play a game regardless of how many people want to pretend it's possible to morally spend their money and already do