(Justified) controversies around JKR aside, a lot of people have been waiting to explore Hogwarts in such a format for a very long time. What I've been told is that it nails that exploration...
(Justified) controversies around JKR aside, a lot of people have been waiting to explore Hogwarts in such a format for a very long time. What I've been told is that it nails that exploration aspect, is easy on the combat and that the story is fairly mediocre with some seriously worrying antisemitic undertones. On top of the fact that HP is a lifestyle brand which means that people who don't normally play video games are gonna be buying it, this was gonna be a smash hit either way.
Adding to that, the JKR controversies have, as far as I can see, not really gotten out into the real world, they've been on the internet only (though maybe that's different in the UK).
The HP books continue to be a great joyride, if you don't think too much about them. Yeah, the worldbuilding's terrible, but their shallow worldbuilding that mixes familiar topics with the magical is enough for most people reading them. There really was no way of stopping this.
This has been a bit of a reality check for me over the past few days? My main source of social media these days has been Tumblr, where I've curated a pretty comfy set of blogs to follow, and the...
Adding to that, the JKR controversies have, as far as I can see, not really gotten out into the real world, they've been on the internet only
This has been a bit of a reality check for me over the past few days?
My main source of social media these days has been Tumblr, where I've curated a pretty comfy set of blogs to follow, and the sentiment has been pretty strong against the game, as far as the posts on my dash go? A combination of "pushback against people who play the game" + "support for trans + Jewish folks" has felt comforting to read, as a trans person. Even YouTubers like the (cis, straight, cooking channel guy) Adam Ragusea have spoken out against buying the game? (Amazing video from him btw!) So, I'd been feeling pretty secure about the upcoming release...
But then I started seeing more and more comments and reviews outside my bubble, written by people who seem to be unaware (or unbothered) by the controversy surrounding JKR, and... man, it kind of hurts? It feels sort of lonely to see nary a mention of transphobia or antisemitism in mainstream coverage of the game. Out of morbid curiosity, I made the mistake of checking Metacritic, and the one-two punch of "universally positive critic reviews" + "user reviews saying vaguely hostile things towards trans people" was enough to really get me down. At this point I don't want to see any more about the damn game, heh. I wish I could hide in a hole until this passes.
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising. People still buy GPUs despite them being made through slave labor. People still buy fast fashion despite it being made in sweatshops. People still eat...
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising. People still buy GPUs despite them being made through slave labor. People still buy fast fashion despite it being made in sweatshops. People still eat meat despite all the suffering involved in that.
Buying a product isn’t a vote to say you support everything that went in to its creation. It’s the acknowledgment that you realistically have to ignore these details or you wouldn’t be able to function in society. If you had to filter out every game where a rights holder or investor had bad opinions, you’d have vanishingly few games available to buy.
I don't know... this feels different? In some of your examples, the product being sold is a necessity for living (clothing, food). In some of your examples, it can sometimes be...
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising. People still buy GPUs despite them being made through slave labor. People still buy fast fashion despite it being made in sweatshops. People still eat meat despite all the suffering involved in that.
I don't know... this feels different?
In some of your examples, the product being sold is a necessity for living (clothing, food). In some of your examples, it can sometimes be difficult/costly/time-intensive to switch to a more sustainable alternative (clothing, food). (And, in some cases, there might not even be any sustainable alternatives!) Plus, in some of your examples, the people/animals being harmed can be so far separated/abstracted away from the buyers (is the term "alienation"? idk) that it can sometimes be hard to have a concrete sense of the harm being done. All of these factors make it relatively frictionless to continue to make unethical choices (assuming there even is a choice to make at all).
By comparison, in the case of HP, you have a product that is a non-necessity -- one that can be fairly painlessly swapped out for a different form of entertainment. Additionally, the harm here is also more tangible, given the visibility of JKR and her ongoing efforts, plus the everyday prevalence of the people who are harmed by her actions. (Trans/Jewish folks can be your family, friends, and colleagues, whereas the workers and animals who supply your products are "somewhere else". Not to excuse or justify that harm, of course? But, more to suggest that the harm here is more "local", relatively speaking. It hits closer to home.)
That's why it's a little more surprising to me that people would make the choices that they're making. Not terribly surprising, honestly? Just... a little surprising.
[Y]ou realistically have to ignore these details or you wouldn’t be able to function in society. If you had to filter out every game where a rights holder or investor had bad opinions, you’d have vanishingly few games available to buy.
This feels overly reductive, in much the same way "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is sometimes treated? Paraphrasing, it feels like this is saying "everything is bad in some way, so it doesn't matter what choice you make." It feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card to absolve the responsibility that comes with making choices.
But, there are plenty of kindhearted indie game developers, plenty of queer game developers, heck... Plenty of normal, average game developers who haven't stooped to the lows of JKRs actions? JKR is exceptional in many ways, far beyond simply having "bad opinions", and so there are many better options a person can choose when it comes to video games and fandom.
I don't think JKR is exceptionally evil compared to most CEOs and billionaires. Personally I find it more immoral to buy something from Amazon or Alibaba given the actions of Bezos and Jack Ma....
I don't think JKR is exceptionally evil compared to most CEOs and billionaires. Personally I find it more immoral to buy something from Amazon or Alibaba given the actions of Bezos and Jack Ma. The majority of game studios are also surrounded in serious issues around sexual harassment and unethical work practices. The things going on at Foxconn and Pegatron to name a tiny selection is also very concerning. You might need a phone to participate in society, but we certainly don't need to buy them as frequently as we do. Yet we don't see mass outrage about phones releasing.
As far as I know, the developers of Hogwarts Legacy didn't have to work 996 hours in a facility wrapped in suicide prevention nets getting paid a few dollars an hour. Which is a major step up from most of the other luxury items we choose to buy.
In your previous comment, the context was specifically about fandoms, about creators, about video games and their developers, and so I tried to identify types of video game developers who are...
I don't think JKR is exceptionally evil compared to most CEOs and billionaires. Personally I find it more immoral to buy something from Amazon or Alibaba given the actions of Bezos and Jack Ma.
In your previous comment, the context was specifically about fandoms, about creators, about video games and their developers, and so I tried to identify types of video game developers who are likely to have done far less harm than JKR -- i.e. I tried to identify alternatives that people could realistically choose over Hogwarts Legacy. Bringing up CEOs and billionaires is... distracting? Off-topic? Suddenly her actions are compared not just to other creators, but to some of the worst actors to exist on our planet.
In that sense, it hurts to see a reply that tries to trivialize the harm done by JKR by holding it alongside worse evils. ("The world is full of evil, so JKR isn't anything special.") Sure, I fully acknowledge that there is plenty of abhorrent harm in the world, but... to be blunt: She is fighting to make sure that people like me cannot exist. She is using her power and influence to try to eliminate people like me. Her comments help to cultivate an environment (especially in the UK) that is actively hostile towards trans people. She's not just an isolated transphobe -- her views echo outward far beyond her, influencing folks in the media, in politics, in positions of power. That's why her specific brand of evil is more important to me right now, relative to the other evils you mention. There is a time and a place for addressing the others, but I don't know if now, in this thread, is that time.
The problem is that any game that isn't Hogwarts Legacy isn't Hogwarts Legacy. The only thing that game as going for it is that you can explore Hogwarts by yourself, and it has a monopoly on that...
I tried to identify alternatives that people could realistically choose over Hogwarts Legacy.
The problem is that any game that isn't Hogwarts Legacy isn't Hogwarts Legacy. The only thing that game as going for it is that you can explore Hogwarts by yourself, and it has a monopoly on that regard. Yes, other HP games exist but they focus more on following the plot of the movies rather than giving you Hogwarts as an interesting open space.
Harry Potter is deeply, deeply entrenched in popular culture. People who don't read books read Harry Potter. People who don't like fantasy read Harry Potter. People who don't read YA have read Harry Potter. The format of the books, following kids for one year/book proved extremely effective at getting kids of similar ages to care about those characters. JKR as a person, despite her significant investments, financial or otherwise, into championing transphobia, has mostly dropped off the radar of the mainstream since the books and mainline movies finished. Her antics have been reserved to online spaces and outside of those, people might not even know of her hate.
Emotionally investing yourself in dying on this hill is a futile effort, because when people see Hogwarts Legacy they remember the time when they were 13 reading the first Harry Potter book, and how much they wished they could receive their invitation letter to Hogwarts, and not recent Youtube videos critically tearing HP apart or JKR's transphobic twitter rants or her financial support of questionable causes. No matter how sympathetic your cause is (and it is), you will not beat someone's deeply personal happy childhood memories. Attacking them because they indulge in this one vice when maybe even being sympathetic to your cause is not going to do anything but alienate them. It may feel good to be angry, it may even be justified, but it will not gain you more allies.
You make really good points. This is a good breakdown of why it's difficult to expect this to have gone any other way than it did. Thanks for sharing this. :) To be clear, I'm not really... angry?...
You make really good points. This is a good breakdown of why it's difficult to expect this to have gone any other way than it did. Thanks for sharing this. :)
Attacking them because they indulge in this one vice when maybe even being sympathetic to your cause is not going to do anything but alienate them. It may feel good to be angry, it may even be justified, but it will not gain you more allies.
To be clear, I'm not really... angry? I haven't actually had any conversations about this before this thread. This the first time I've really aired my thoughts, beyond my chats with my partner? And... I don't think I've attacked anyone? I don't really support attacking people over this, tbh.
I'm more just... disappointed? Disappointed in this game's popularity, disappointed that JKR will become even more rich than she already is, disappointed that her misdeeds aren't as visible as I'd thought they were, and disappointed that even people who know about her misdeeds aren't as fazed as I'd hoped they'd be.
I'd like to apologize for wording my comment in a way that made it read like you're attacking people. You're not and I do not think so, nor did I want to phrase it in such a way. I fell into the...
I'd like to apologize for wording my comment in a way that made it read like you're attacking people. You're not and I do not think so, nor did I want to phrase it in such a way. I fell into the common trap of conflating your comment with the rest of the discourse I've seen online about the topic, which lead to me replying to points I've seen elsewhere, but you specifically did not make.
Look, you're already disappointed and I'm just going to add on top of that disappointment by saying that fundamentally, I have enjoyed Harry Potter as a story. I have not read it in a while, partially due to everything around the topic, but also partially because I just haven't read books in a while due to IRL reasons, and at it's core, I still consider it a good story. A good story with terrible, unplanned worldbuilding where every choice that the author made (literally all of them on a whim and on a per book basis) lead to problems down the line which she tried to address in such a stupidly heavy-handed manner that if you sit down and think about it, it's done nothing but make the world she's built worse. A lot of people though, never sit down to think about it. Deeply analyzing media was something that was relegated to media critics once and like-minded small circles of enthusiasts. I honestly think that Youtube changing it's revenue format for creators played a major part in this, giving rise to an army of video essayists ready to throw at you an at least 40min video about literally any topic, but often about the media we consume, and the fact that JKR's twitter antics make her a juicy target (rich and hateful is easy to hate in turn), and the fact that HP as a franchise breaks down incredibly easily if you look beyond the core story means that today you can go on youtube and drown in video essays that tell you in vivid detail about every tiny, and every tremendous flaw of the franchise. The fact that HP remains so popular only adds to this effect.
I'm more just... disappointed? Disappointed in this game's popularity, disappointed that JKR will become even more rich than she already is, disappointed that her misdeeds aren't as visible as I'd thought they were, and disappointed that even people who know about her misdeeds aren't as fazed as I'd hoped they'd be.
(I'm a wordy person and my posts tend to turn into streams of consciousness, please bear with me)
Big groups (one might call them mobs) tend to form easily on the internet, because it's easier to find likeminded people on the digital tides, for better or for worse. And big groups love to simplify issues down to simpler shades than gray, because it produces agreement, which can fester into ferocity. You're feeling disappointed, and so am I, but with an added tone of ambivalence and confusion. JKR, despite her significant investments pushing forward transphobia, also has significant investments into philantropy regarding the health and wellbeing of children and women (later only cis women when her hate turned more feverish), and she has put that money to effective use in both causes. Does one cancel out the other? Do we tally up her investments to see where she put more money so we can decide if she's evil or not? Or does her hatred outweigh her good actions by default? I honestly don't know. Please help me.
I guess that people more directly affected by her hate will have an easier time hating her in turn and I understand why. She's powerful, and despite not being entrenched in any sort of vital industry, despite only authoring 7 decent books and a bunch of shit ranging from bad to mediocre, JKR has been very difficult to remove from the public, and continues to hate in public. But as I said, in a very diminished public sense. I wonder what would've happened if she radicalised like this in the middle of book 6 of HP.
Your disappointment is valid. In a time where society should've backed up a very vulnerable group, society said "More Hogwarts please". But I also don't think that every enjoyer of the new game is a raging transphobe in a similar vein that JKR is, and I don't think that saying "More Hogwarts please" to an entirely different set of people who went out of their way to make the game trans-inclusive as possible (though I understand how shallow of an appeasement that might be) makes you a transphobe. I think. Maybe. :(
While writing this, I keep thinking of a particular quote of the author Terry Pratchett, who was infinitely better at writing than JKR and a huge ally of queer (trans included) people everywhere, and his works ooze of that support. I can't find a way to work that quote into this comment, but it's definitely going to be better than anything I could come up with to end it.
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Before I jump in here I want to preface this post by saying that none of this is meant to apply to any specific person on Tildes. I'm speaking in the abstract here, conceptually, about how to be a...
Exemplary
Before I jump in here I want to preface this post by saying that none of this is meant to apply to any specific person on Tildes. I'm speaking in the abstract here, conceptually, about how to be a good ally and why this tension is often present in online spaces. Please don't take any of this to heart, unless you are reading it in good faith and using it as a set of guidelines to frame how others might be feeling so that you can modify your behavior of your own volition because it's something you want to do.
I honestly don't know. Please help me.
Ultimately there's two questions here. The first is whether or not you're being an ally or being helpful online, and the second is a question of moral calculus.
I recently attended a talk by Kenji Yoshino, a prominent educator on diversity and equity teachings. He has a framework that he helped to develop called the empathy triangle aimed at helping people understand whether they are being empathetic to others. Of note in this reply, is the inward framing. You want to know how to do better. This is a double edged sword. Wanting to be better is good, we need allies. But asking someone who's directly affected by the system online how to be better may not be the best way to accomplish learning. I think it might be helpful to you to review the dots in all three of the empathy triangle components because they may help you to understand what kind of behavior constitutes actual allyship and where you might be violating the empathetic needs of others.
Looking online I found an older talk with Kenji that might be helpful to understand this triangle and how it could apply to your interactions. Thinking through whether you're being empathetic to another person online might help you reach a conclusion about the moral calculus - there's a real damage you can be causing to others by ignoring parts of this empathy triangle. You could be adding to the emotional burden that society places on minorities by contributing to a narrative which affects individuals. There's a fine line to be walked here when it comes to implication vs. actual words and what people often refer to as triggers, but that's a discussion that I don't think we have time for, nor is one that's particularly relevant to examining your own thoughts and feelings about when you think it is appropriate to chime in and when it might be most appropriate to avoid a conversation or not participate in a conversation in a particular venue (be it an entire website, a specific thread, or with a specific person).
As for the second part, the question of moral calculus, ultimately only you can answer this question. Regardless of how you answer this question and what you think is okay behavior, you should be considering tools like the empathy triangle to help you understand when it's appropriate to speak and to whom. Imagining a hypothetical situation in which we have two minority groups x and y, and a figure who is extremely anti-x and pro-y I might choose to speak about this person only around people who are y to avoid causing troubles around people who are x, even if its relevant to a conversation started in a heavily x-laden group. I want to be empathetic to individuals who are x, and give them space to vent about the behaviors of this individual, because they are directly affected by this person's actions (I am not). If people of x and y groups want to hash out their differences, it might be best for me to completely avoid this conversation. With that being said, I may wish to venture into x and y heavy spaces to understand how they feel. I may also want to discuss where the boundaries of being helpful and harmful are among communities not affected by x or y, or at least avoid the sub-conversations which directly involve the affected communities. It's not about avoiding the conversation so much as finding the appropriate venue.
I also think it's important to talk a bit about acceptance by various groups here, because I think people who are not activists are not as familiar with this concept and the various roles that are being played in activism by different groups. I've recently been reading through a book titled the persuaders. A short summary of this book is that it's a deep dive into specific individuals and how they contributed to important political and social movements. A recurring theme in this book is that many of the people who are persuaders are both universally loved and hated, depending on the subgroup you ask within the space they are working. Many of these individuals were willing to take much more nuanced stances on issues and work with people against the tide of resistance that surfaces when people focus to infight as opposed to reach out.
The reason I bring this up is that in order to affect change, you need voices across the entire spectrum. You need radicals and moderates, because they are able to affect change in different places. The radicals help to drive forward progress by pushing boundaries and forcing a conversation. The moderates, on the other hand, are often people who are capable of changing the minds of other groups by listening and responding. No one can be both, and being one will often make the other group upset with you for compromising. In activism, there's an acceptance of this, and an understanding of the needs of both groups. You don't write someone off, stop talking to them, or report them to the authorities because they say something you disagree with or that hurts your feelings. You have an emotionally charged conversation with them and you respect them as an individual with differing but mostly aligned needs, and you find out where compromise can be reached. I find this mindset very absent from most online spaces. People get very upset when a radical accuses them of not being a good ally, or being bigoted. Instead of asking them for their viewpoint of what makes them bigoted so that they can decide whether they wish to change their behavior, they grandstand or get on a high horse, report the comment, and look to their allies for support. Someone else is wrong on the internet, they tell themselves, rather than looking outwards to better understand someone else.
Most people have already come to terms with the idea that they aren't going to please everyone. But most people are also fragile on the internet - they need the support of their allies or they need to appeal to moral authority or they need to shut down difficult conversations because they need to be the most correct. It's okay to be correct on some issues and incorrect on others. I know I've made many people on this website upset at me, but I still try to do my best to respect them as individuals, while not compromising on my moral values. Just because I don't agree with how one person is acting on one axis towards say, transgender people, does not mean that I think they're a bad person. As you stated earlier, moral calculus is tricky. It's okay to simultaneously think someone is a good person who has done some bad things. For example, I might know someone who cheated on their wife. Is this enough to make them a piece of shit despite everything else they've done? Probably not, but I also know that I probably shouldn't talk about this person around people who've suffered greatly from cheating partners or who have trust issues. It also doesn't mean that I shouldn't call out this bad behavior to the person and have a tough conversation with them about how they can and should do better. But none of those things are me making an absolute decision about the 'ultimate morality' of this person. I think that's a fruitless act, and something we need to toss away. We need to embrace the shades of gray out there and do our best to listen to (rather than defend against) others about their viewpoints so that we can change our own behavior in ways that make sense for us.
Considering the context around HL, I wonder if any inclusion could be done in that game without it being called virtue signalling, considering where at least part of the money is going. Sirona is...
Considering the context around HL, I wonder if any inclusion could be done in that game without it being called virtue signalling, considering where at least part of the money is going.
Sirona is a celtic name and I think not a bad choice, splitting the name to find connections to anything masculine is splitting hairs. While her inclusion to the game is for sure performative bullshit, the entire game is pretty shallow.
Cho Chang is indeed a terrible name. Anthony Goldstein is nothing special, but reeks of the fact that he was given a very Jewish sounding name because that's his only defining characteristic. It's understandable, he's a side character, but it fits JKR's attempts to make HP more "woke" (and claim the prize of positive attention) after the fact without putting any of the actual work in beforehand.
Why people hate the name Kingsley Shacklebolt though, I don't understand. It's a sick name. I'd love to have that name.
I was trying to explain that HP as a franchise is responsible for a lot of happy childhood memories and fighting people on it is an incredible uphill battle, especially if you're going to be...
I was trying to explain that HP as a franchise is responsible for a lot of happy childhood memories and fighting people on it is an incredible uphill battle, especially if you're going to be attacking them about it, you're bound to land some hits in very vulnerable places.
I don't appreciate conflating that with my own views.
It feels more straightforward, at least to me. A portion of every sale of Hogwarts Legacy is going to Rowling for royalties, which she will almost certainly put towards her efforts to make the...
I don't know... this feels different?
It feels more straightforward, at least to me. A portion of every sale of Hogwarts Legacy is going to Rowling for royalties, which she will almost certainly put towards her efforts to make the lives of my friends worse.
I don't mean to be a downer, but I hope this helps shed light on how little people are often willing to do for others. People will call themselves an ally, but if you ask them what they've done-...
It feels sort of lonely to see nary a mention of transphobia or antisemitism in mainstream coverage of the game.
I don't mean to be a downer, but I hope this helps shed light on how little people are often willing to do for others. People will call themselves an ally, but if you ask them what they've done- how they've used their platform to affect change for others and most people won't have an answer. They have friends who are minorities, and they respect them as individuals in a genuinely non-bigoted way, and they think that's the extent to which they need to chip in to claim allyship. Heck, maybe they've even attempted to educate their more bigoted friends about how they're wrong and feel particularly good about changing the minds of a few people. This last point obviously doesn't apply to the mainstream coverage of the game you're referring to, however, as it's clear even that part appears to be missing.
As an aside I think it's important to note the history of pro trans narratives in the media - for example, GDQ has had strong pro-trans policies for quite some time. Back in the early 2010s they caught a lot of flak for this. The fact that there even is this amount of attention to the harm this piece of shit TERF causes to the world is proof that things are getting better. But we're still a long way away from acceptance. There's currently 321 anti-lgbtq bills working their way through legislation in the US right now, many of which have much more immediate and dire effects on trans folks than JKR does (altho I'm sure her money helps to fund legislation exactly like this).
Also... If you find yourself emotionally affected by the discussion around this game, the healthiest move might be to remove yourself from the equation and opt-out from clicking links about it. Recently I came across someone explaining that this behavior can be a form of digital self-harm. You know it will hurt, and yet you still seek it out. Just as people who physically self-harm, exploring why you feel a desire to seek out this particular stimulus might be helpful to understand what's missing or might need attention in your life. You deserve to be happy, don't let your brain sabotage you 💜
I totally get this. Personally I was surprised when I checked the /r/Games review thread and found virtually no coverage of her controversies in the comments. I had assumed the majority of the...
But then I started seeing more and more comments and reviews outside my bubble, written by people who seem to be unaware (or unbothered) by the controversy surrounding JKR, and... man, it kind of hurts?
I totally get this. Personally I was surprised when I checked the /r/Games review thread and found virtually no coverage of her controversies in the comments. I had assumed the majority of the internet had soured on Rowling by this point, but apparently not. I guess this should be our "go touch some grass" moment? lol
Seriously though, maybe we should use this as a reminder for how dangerous content bubbles can be. We build up these sets of norms within a community, but then we have to navigate a larger world that doesn't respect them. It's almost like different groups of people live in separate moral universes, occasionally colliding like a wall of matter and a wall of antimatter. For the trans community, Rowling will always be a TERF first and the creator of Harry Potter second. But most people will know her foremost for Harry Potter and, only secondly, as a TERF -- assuming they even know what a TERF is.
Oh there definitely was on r/Games, but that subreddit has taken a "fuck it, get out" approach with certain political discussions because they just never go well on the subreddit. Pretty much any...
Oh there definitely was on r/Games, but that subreddit has taken a "fuck it, get out" approach with certain political discussions because they just never go well on the subreddit. Pretty much any article that attempts to tackle social issues there is hidden by downvotes immediately, after all. But if you check out their Discord, the mod-team and members are big into allyship, pro-trans rights and positivity, and LGBT+ matters. Many members there are trans or LGBT themselves.
But they're not putting a moratorium on the game either, including their LGBT, trans, and Jewish members. The struggle seems to be between wanting to play the open-world Hogwarts game they've been dreaming of for 20 years while also not paying for it because fuck JKR. If anything, the Girlfriend Reviews harassment received more discussion because of how overboard and unwarranted that was, especially since Shelby (the eponymous Girlfriend) is Jewish herself and has strong feelings about the anti-Semitic depictions in a game that's centred around the most anti-Semitic imagery of the world.
I definitely missed these articles! Thank you for sharing. <3 EDIT: That first one is definitely in line with what I was hoping/expecting from coverage of that game. It felt good to read, so thank...
I definitely missed these articles! Thank you for sharing. <3
EDIT: That first one is definitely in line with what I was hoping/expecting from coverage of that game. It felt good to read, so thank you again. :)
I was having some of the same feelings as you about the coverage of HL, and I specifically went to Polygon shortly after launch to see if they had a review (because I generally like the editorial...
I was having some of the same feelings as you about the coverage of HL, and I specifically went to Polygon shortly after launch to see if they had a review (because I generally like the editorial line at Polygon and felt like they would do a good job of addressing the controversies around the game) and couldn't find one. It looks like the linked review came out on 02/17 which is a full week after the game launched. I'm really surprised it took that long to get a review out, but maybe they didn't get an advance copy or felt like they needed more time. I'd be very curious to know what happened there.
The Kotaku piece that was linked was published yesterday, and there's another opinion piece that's very critical of the game that also came out on 02/17 - the same date as the Polygon piece. Kotaku also doesn't have a full review of the game at all. I'm really not sure what happened here.
Those two sites are the two major gaming publications that I would have expected to consider the controversial aspects of the game the most, and they didn't really have anything published until a full week after the public release. And since Polygon doesn't score games anymore, it's not incorporated into the Metacritic score. It's odd that the negative coverage about the game lagged so far behind the positive, and it's a shame that the publications that are being more critical don't show up on Metacritic. Somebody mentioned elsewhere that they may not have gotten an advance review copies, which would be surprising to me. I assumed that as major gaming publications they would be getting review copies of any upcoming games. That may be a naive assumption on my part, though.
Hm, I wonder if they picked and chose who not to send advance copies to. Girlfriend Reviews received an advance copy nearly a week in advance of the game.
Hm, I wonder if they picked and chose who not to send advance copies to. Girlfriend Reviews received an advance copy nearly a week in advance of the game.
I feel it's the same thing that happens with any type of controversy in other games. There is a vocal minority online whenever there's a game that seems to abuse their players or from companies...
I feel it's the same thing that happens with any type of controversy in other games. There is a vocal minority online whenever there's a game that seems to abuse their players or from companies with unethical practices, but this never leads to the game failing. Fifa and similar sports games are examples of this, also Blizzard games. Society in general is either ignorant of the issues, very forgiving or very willing to ignore them.
As others mention, there's plenty of examples of similar behaviours in other industries. Look for instance at the World Cup last year, not only was it delivered by abusing human rights but it was a risky event to attend with Covid running rampant, which didn't stop people from going or tuning into it.
The fact that it surpasses Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn't surprising. Personally speaking, the entire series felt like a cash grab to begin with. And from what I've heard they...
The fact that it surpasses Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn't surprising. Personally speaking, the entire series felt like a cash grab to begin with. And from what I've heard they mangled the characters and the plot so badly in the last movie they released they managed to anger a lot of the fans. On the contrary I'm hearing that Hogwarts Legacy was crafted with a great deal more care by people who actually know what they were doing and doesn't (to my knowledge) majorly break any of the characters or lore that the HP books and films have established.
I mean, really, the book that Fantastic Beasts is named after didn't even have a plot to begin with.
JK’s bigotry aside, from what I’ve seen on Twitch it doesn’t look like the kind of game I’d enjoy. Too many cutscenes and too much handholding. Skyrim set a high bar for empowering the player and...
JK’s bigotry aside, from what I’ve seen on Twitch it doesn’t look like the kind of game I’d enjoy. Too many cutscenes and too much handholding. Skyrim set a high bar for empowering the player and getting out of your way. I judge every other vaguely RPG like game against it.
On a separate meta level from the Rowling stuff, the game's major success ($850m in revenue, >12m copies sold in the first two weeks: source) could hopefully Encourage publishers to give more...
On a separate meta level from the Rowling stuff, the game's major success ($850m in revenue, >12m copies sold in the first two weeks: source) could hopefully
Encourage publishers to give more ambitious work to lesser known studios. One of the major meta threads throughout the game's release was whether or not a studio was only did so called "shovelware" (although, apparently Disney Infinite was not bad) would be able to make a AAA game, but in the end they knocked it out of the park. That this is their big break is also extra motivation for the studio.
Encourage more solid, singleplayer, AAA titles. It's not a live game, it doesn't have any microtransactions, it doesn't even have DLC planned. Just a solid, single player experience making money from its sticker price.
(Justified) controversies around JKR aside, a lot of people have been waiting to explore Hogwarts in such a format for a very long time. What I've been told is that it nails that exploration aspect, is easy on the combat and that the story is fairly mediocre with some seriously worrying antisemitic undertones. On top of the fact that HP is a lifestyle brand which means that people who don't normally play video games are gonna be buying it, this was gonna be a smash hit either way.
Adding to that, the JKR controversies have, as far as I can see, not really gotten out into the real world, they've been on the internet only (though maybe that's different in the UK).
The HP books continue to be a great joyride, if you don't think too much about them. Yeah, the worldbuilding's terrible, but their shallow worldbuilding that mixes familiar topics with the magical is enough for most people reading them. There really was no way of stopping this.
This has been a bit of a reality check for me over the past few days?
My main source of social media these days has been Tumblr, where I've curated a pretty comfy set of blogs to follow, and the sentiment has been pretty strong against the game, as far as the posts on my dash go? A combination of "pushback against people who play the game" + "support for trans + Jewish folks" has felt comforting to read, as a trans person. Even YouTubers like the (cis, straight, cooking channel guy) Adam Ragusea have spoken out against buying the game? (Amazing video from him btw!) So, I'd been feeling pretty secure about the upcoming release...
But then I started seeing more and more comments and reviews outside my bubble, written by people who seem to be unaware (or unbothered) by the controversy surrounding JKR, and... man, it kind of hurts? It feels sort of lonely to see nary a mention of transphobia or antisemitism in mainstream coverage of the game. Out of morbid curiosity, I made the mistake of checking Metacritic, and the one-two punch of "universally positive critic reviews" + "user reviews saying vaguely hostile things towards trans people" was enough to really get me down. At this point I don't want to see any more about the damn game, heh. I wish I could hide in a hole until this passes.
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising. People still buy GPUs despite them being made through slave labor. People still buy fast fashion despite it being made in sweatshops. People still eat meat despite all the suffering involved in that.
Buying a product isn’t a vote to say you support everything that went in to its creation. It’s the acknowledgment that you realistically have to ignore these details or you wouldn’t be able to function in society. If you had to filter out every game where a rights holder or investor had bad opinions, you’d have vanishingly few games available to buy.
I don't know... this feels different?
In some of your examples, the product being sold is a necessity for living (clothing, food). In some of your examples, it can sometimes be difficult/costly/time-intensive to switch to a more sustainable alternative (clothing, food). (And, in some cases, there might not even be any sustainable alternatives!) Plus, in some of your examples, the people/animals being harmed can be so far separated/abstracted away from the buyers (is the term "alienation"? idk) that it can sometimes be hard to have a concrete sense of the harm being done. All of these factors make it relatively frictionless to continue to make unethical choices (assuming there even is a choice to make at all).
By comparison, in the case of HP, you have a product that is a non-necessity -- one that can be fairly painlessly swapped out for a different form of entertainment. Additionally, the harm here is also more tangible, given the visibility of JKR and her ongoing efforts, plus the everyday prevalence of the people who are harmed by her actions. (Trans/Jewish folks can be your family, friends, and colleagues, whereas the workers and animals who supply your products are "somewhere else". Not to excuse or justify that harm, of course? But, more to suggest that the harm here is more "local", relatively speaking. It hits closer to home.)
That's why it's a little more surprising to me that people would make the choices that they're making. Not terribly surprising, honestly? Just... a little surprising.
This feels overly reductive, in much the same way "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" is sometimes treated? Paraphrasing, it feels like this is saying "everything is bad in some way, so it doesn't matter what choice you make." It feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card to absolve the responsibility that comes with making choices.
But, there are plenty of kindhearted indie game developers, plenty of queer game developers, heck... Plenty of normal, average game developers who haven't stooped to the lows of JKRs actions? JKR is exceptional in many ways, far beyond simply having "bad opinions", and so there are many better options a person can choose when it comes to video games and fandom.
I don't think JKR is exceptionally evil compared to most CEOs and billionaires. Personally I find it more immoral to buy something from Amazon or Alibaba given the actions of Bezos and Jack Ma. The majority of game studios are also surrounded in serious issues around sexual harassment and unethical work practices. The things going on at Foxconn and Pegatron to name a tiny selection is also very concerning. You might need a phone to participate in society, but we certainly don't need to buy them as frequently as we do. Yet we don't see mass outrage about phones releasing.
As far as I know, the developers of Hogwarts Legacy didn't have to work 996 hours in a facility wrapped in suicide prevention nets getting paid a few dollars an hour. Which is a major step up from most of the other luxury items we choose to buy.
In your previous comment, the context was specifically about fandoms, about creators, about video games and their developers, and so I tried to identify types of video game developers who are likely to have done far less harm than JKR -- i.e. I tried to identify alternatives that people could realistically choose over Hogwarts Legacy. Bringing up CEOs and billionaires is... distracting? Off-topic? Suddenly her actions are compared not just to other creators, but to some of the worst actors to exist on our planet.
In that sense, it hurts to see a reply that tries to trivialize the harm done by JKR by holding it alongside worse evils. ("The world is full of evil, so JKR isn't anything special.") Sure, I fully acknowledge that there is plenty of abhorrent harm in the world, but... to be blunt: She is fighting to make sure that people like me cannot exist. She is using her power and influence to try to eliminate people like me. Her comments help to cultivate an environment (especially in the UK) that is actively hostile towards trans people. She's not just an isolated transphobe -- her views echo outward far beyond her, influencing folks in the media, in politics, in positions of power. That's why her specific brand of evil is more important to me right now, relative to the other evils you mention. There is a time and a place for addressing the others, but I don't know if now, in this thread, is that time.
The problem is that any game that isn't Hogwarts Legacy isn't Hogwarts Legacy. The only thing that game as going for it is that you can explore Hogwarts by yourself, and it has a monopoly on that regard. Yes, other HP games exist but they focus more on following the plot of the movies rather than giving you Hogwarts as an interesting open space.
Harry Potter is deeply, deeply entrenched in popular culture. People who don't read books read Harry Potter. People who don't like fantasy read Harry Potter. People who don't read YA have read Harry Potter. The format of the books, following kids for one year/book proved extremely effective at getting kids of similar ages to care about those characters. JKR as a person, despite her significant investments, financial or otherwise, into championing transphobia, has mostly dropped off the radar of the mainstream since the books and mainline movies finished. Her antics have been reserved to online spaces and outside of those, people might not even know of her hate.
Emotionally investing yourself in dying on this hill is a futile effort, because when people see Hogwarts Legacy they remember the time when they were 13 reading the first Harry Potter book, and how much they wished they could receive their invitation letter to Hogwarts, and not recent Youtube videos critically tearing HP apart or JKR's transphobic twitter rants or her financial support of questionable causes. No matter how sympathetic your cause is (and it is), you will not beat someone's deeply personal happy childhood memories. Attacking them because they indulge in this one vice when maybe even being sympathetic to your cause is not going to do anything but alienate them. It may feel good to be angry, it may even be justified, but it will not gain you more allies.
You make really good points. This is a good breakdown of why it's difficult to expect this to have gone any other way than it did. Thanks for sharing this. :)
To be clear, I'm not really... angry? I haven't actually had any conversations about this before this thread. This the first time I've really aired my thoughts, beyond my chats with my partner? And... I don't think I've attacked anyone? I don't really support attacking people over this, tbh.
I'm more just... disappointed? Disappointed in this game's popularity, disappointed that JKR will become even more rich than she already is, disappointed that her misdeeds aren't as visible as I'd thought they were, and disappointed that even people who know about her misdeeds aren't as fazed as I'd hoped they'd be.
I'd like to apologize for wording my comment in a way that made it read like you're attacking people. You're not and I do not think so, nor did I want to phrase it in such a way. I fell into the common trap of conflating your comment with the rest of the discourse I've seen online about the topic, which lead to me replying to points I've seen elsewhere, but you specifically did not make.
Look, you're already disappointed and I'm just going to add on top of that disappointment by saying that fundamentally, I have enjoyed Harry Potter as a story. I have not read it in a while, partially due to everything around the topic, but also partially because I just haven't read books in a while due to IRL reasons, and at it's core, I still consider it a good story. A good story with terrible, unplanned worldbuilding where every choice that the author made (literally all of them on a whim and on a per book basis) lead to problems down the line which she tried to address in such a stupidly heavy-handed manner that if you sit down and think about it, it's done nothing but make the world she's built worse. A lot of people though, never sit down to think about it. Deeply analyzing media was something that was relegated to media critics once and like-minded small circles of enthusiasts. I honestly think that Youtube changing it's revenue format for creators played a major part in this, giving rise to an army of video essayists ready to throw at you an at least 40min video about literally any topic, but often about the media we consume, and the fact that JKR's twitter antics make her a juicy target (rich and hateful is easy to hate in turn), and the fact that HP as a franchise breaks down incredibly easily if you look beyond the core story means that today you can go on youtube and drown in video essays that tell you in vivid detail about every tiny, and every tremendous flaw of the franchise. The fact that HP remains so popular only adds to this effect.
(I'm a wordy person and my posts tend to turn into streams of consciousness, please bear with me)
Big groups (one might call them mobs) tend to form easily on the internet, because it's easier to find likeminded people on the digital tides, for better or for worse. And big groups love to simplify issues down to simpler shades than gray, because it produces agreement, which can fester into ferocity. You're feeling disappointed, and so am I, but with an added tone of ambivalence and confusion. JKR, despite her significant investments pushing forward transphobia, also has significant investments into philantropy regarding the health and wellbeing of children and women (later only cis women when her hate turned more feverish), and she has put that money to effective use in both causes. Does one cancel out the other? Do we tally up her investments to see where she put more money so we can decide if she's evil or not? Or does her hatred outweigh her good actions by default? I honestly don't know. Please help me.
I guess that people more directly affected by her hate will have an easier time hating her in turn and I understand why. She's powerful, and despite not being entrenched in any sort of vital industry, despite only authoring 7 decent books and a bunch of shit ranging from bad to mediocre, JKR has been very difficult to remove from the public, and continues to hate in public. But as I said, in a very diminished public sense. I wonder what would've happened if she radicalised like this in the middle of book 6 of HP.
Your disappointment is valid. In a time where society should've backed up a very vulnerable group, society said "More Hogwarts please". But I also don't think that every enjoyer of the new game is a raging transphobe in a similar vein that JKR is, and I don't think that saying "More Hogwarts please" to an entirely different set of people who went out of their way to make the game trans-inclusive as possible (though I understand how shallow of an appeasement that might be) makes you a transphobe. I think. Maybe. :(
While writing this, I keep thinking of a particular quote of the author Terry Pratchett, who was infinitely better at writing than JKR and a huge ally of queer (trans included) people everywhere, and his works ooze of that support. I can't find a way to work that quote into this comment, but it's definitely going to be better than anything I could come up with to end it.
Before I jump in here I want to preface this post by saying that none of this is meant to apply to any specific person on Tildes. I'm speaking in the abstract here, conceptually, about how to be a good ally and why this tension is often present in online spaces. Please don't take any of this to heart, unless you are reading it in good faith and using it as a set of guidelines to frame how others might be feeling so that you can modify your behavior of your own volition because it's something you want to do.
Ultimately there's two questions here. The first is whether or not you're being an ally or being helpful online, and the second is a question of moral calculus.
I recently attended a talk by Kenji Yoshino, a prominent educator on diversity and equity teachings. He has a framework that he helped to develop called the empathy triangle aimed at helping people understand whether they are being empathetic to others. Of note in this reply, is the inward framing. You want to know how to do better. This is a double edged sword. Wanting to be better is good, we need allies. But asking someone who's directly affected by the system online how to be better may not be the best way to accomplish learning. I think it might be helpful to you to review the dots in all three of the empathy triangle components because they may help you to understand what kind of behavior constitutes actual allyship and where you might be violating the empathetic needs of others.
Looking online I found an older talk with Kenji that might be helpful to understand this triangle and how it could apply to your interactions. Thinking through whether you're being empathetic to another person online might help you reach a conclusion about the moral calculus - there's a real damage you can be causing to others by ignoring parts of this empathy triangle. You could be adding to the emotional burden that society places on minorities by contributing to a narrative which affects individuals. There's a fine line to be walked here when it comes to implication vs. actual words and what people often refer to as triggers, but that's a discussion that I don't think we have time for, nor is one that's particularly relevant to examining your own thoughts and feelings about when you think it is appropriate to chime in and when it might be most appropriate to avoid a conversation or not participate in a conversation in a particular venue (be it an entire website, a specific thread, or with a specific person).
As for the second part, the question of moral calculus, ultimately only you can answer this question. Regardless of how you answer this question and what you think is okay behavior, you should be considering tools like the empathy triangle to help you understand when it's appropriate to speak and to whom. Imagining a hypothetical situation in which we have two minority groups x and y, and a figure who is extremely anti-x and pro-y I might choose to speak about this person only around people who are y to avoid causing troubles around people who are x, even if its relevant to a conversation started in a heavily x-laden group. I want to be empathetic to individuals who are x, and give them space to vent about the behaviors of this individual, because they are directly affected by this person's actions (I am not). If people of x and y groups want to hash out their differences, it might be best for me to completely avoid this conversation. With that being said, I may wish to venture into x and y heavy spaces to understand how they feel. I may also want to discuss where the boundaries of being helpful and harmful are among communities not affected by x or y, or at least avoid the sub-conversations which directly involve the affected communities. It's not about avoiding the conversation so much as finding the appropriate venue.
I also think it's important to talk a bit about acceptance by various groups here, because I think people who are not activists are not as familiar with this concept and the various roles that are being played in activism by different groups. I've recently been reading through a book titled the persuaders. A short summary of this book is that it's a deep dive into specific individuals and how they contributed to important political and social movements. A recurring theme in this book is that many of the people who are persuaders are both universally loved and hated, depending on the subgroup you ask within the space they are working. Many of these individuals were willing to take much more nuanced stances on issues and work with people against the tide of resistance that surfaces when people focus to infight as opposed to reach out.
The reason I bring this up is that in order to affect change, you need voices across the entire spectrum. You need radicals and moderates, because they are able to affect change in different places. The radicals help to drive forward progress by pushing boundaries and forcing a conversation. The moderates, on the other hand, are often people who are capable of changing the minds of other groups by listening and responding. No one can be both, and being one will often make the other group upset with you for compromising. In activism, there's an acceptance of this, and an understanding of the needs of both groups. You don't write someone off, stop talking to them, or report them to the authorities because they say something you disagree with or that hurts your feelings. You have an emotionally charged conversation with them and you respect them as an individual with differing but mostly aligned needs, and you find out where compromise can be reached. I find this mindset very absent from most online spaces. People get very upset when a radical accuses them of not being a good ally, or being bigoted. Instead of asking them for their viewpoint of what makes them bigoted so that they can decide whether they wish to change their behavior, they grandstand or get on a high horse, report the comment, and look to their allies for support. Someone else is wrong on the internet, they tell themselves, rather than looking outwards to better understand someone else.
Most people have already come to terms with the idea that they aren't going to please everyone. But most people are also fragile on the internet - they need the support of their allies or they need to appeal to moral authority or they need to shut down difficult conversations because they need to be the most correct. It's okay to be correct on some issues and incorrect on others. I know I've made many people on this website upset at me, but I still try to do my best to respect them as individuals, while not compromising on my moral values. Just because I don't agree with how one person is acting on one axis towards say, transgender people, does not mean that I think they're a bad person. As you stated earlier, moral calculus is tricky. It's okay to simultaneously think someone is a good person who has done some bad things. For example, I might know someone who cheated on their wife. Is this enough to make them a piece of shit despite everything else they've done? Probably not, but I also know that I probably shouldn't talk about this person around people who've suffered greatly from cheating partners or who have trust issues. It also doesn't mean that I shouldn't call out this bad behavior to the person and have a tough conversation with them about how they can and should do better. But none of those things are me making an absolute decision about the 'ultimate morality' of this person. I think that's a fruitless act, and something we need to toss away. We need to embrace the shades of gray out there and do our best to listen to (rather than defend against) others about their viewpoints so that we can change our own behavior in ways that make sense for us.
Considering the context around HL, I wonder if any inclusion could be done in that game without it being called virtue signalling, considering where at least part of the money is going.
Sirona is a celtic name and I think not a bad choice, splitting the name to find connections to anything masculine is splitting hairs. While her inclusion to the game is for sure performative bullshit, the entire game is pretty shallow.
Cho Chang is indeed a terrible name. Anthony Goldstein is nothing special, but reeks of the fact that he was given a very Jewish sounding name because that's his only defining characteristic. It's understandable, he's a side character, but it fits JKR's attempts to make HP more "woke" (and claim the prize of positive attention) after the fact without putting any of the actual work in beforehand.
Why people hate the name Kingsley Shacklebolt though, I don't understand. It's a sick name. I'd love to have that name.
I was trying to explain that HP as a franchise is responsible for a lot of happy childhood memories and fighting people on it is an incredible uphill battle, especially if you're going to be attacking them about it, you're bound to land some hits in very vulnerable places.
I don't appreciate conflating that with my own views.
It feels more straightforward, at least to me. A portion of every sale of Hogwarts Legacy is going to Rowling for royalties, which she will almost certainly put towards her efforts to make the lives of my friends worse.
I don't mean to be a downer, but I hope this helps shed light on how little people are often willing to do for others. People will call themselves an ally, but if you ask them what they've done- how they've used their platform to affect change for others and most people won't have an answer. They have friends who are minorities, and they respect them as individuals in a genuinely non-bigoted way, and they think that's the extent to which they need to chip in to claim allyship. Heck, maybe they've even attempted to educate their more bigoted friends about how they're wrong and feel particularly good about changing the minds of a few people. This last point obviously doesn't apply to the mainstream coverage of the game you're referring to, however, as it's clear even that part appears to be missing.
As an aside I think it's important to note the history of pro trans narratives in the media - for example, GDQ has had strong pro-trans policies for quite some time. Back in the early 2010s they caught a lot of flak for this. The fact that there even is this amount of attention to the harm this piece of shit TERF causes to the world is proof that things are getting better. But we're still a long way away from acceptance. There's currently 321 anti-lgbtq bills working their way through legislation in the US right now, many of which have much more immediate and dire effects on trans folks than JKR does (altho I'm sure her money helps to fund legislation exactly like this).
Also... If you find yourself emotionally affected by the discussion around this game, the healthiest move might be to remove yourself from the equation and opt-out from clicking links about it. Recently I came across someone explaining that this behavior can be a form of digital self-harm. You know it will hurt, and yet you still seek it out. Just as people who physically self-harm, exploring why you feel a desire to seek out this particular stimulus might be helpful to understand what's missing or might need attention in your life. You deserve to be happy, don't let your brain sabotage you 💜
I totally get this. Personally I was surprised when I checked the /r/Games review thread and found virtually no coverage of her controversies in the comments. I had assumed the majority of the internet had soured on Rowling by this point, but apparently not. I guess this should be our "go touch some grass" moment? lol
Seriously though, maybe we should use this as a reminder for how dangerous content bubbles can be. We build up these sets of norms within a community, but then we have to navigate a larger world that doesn't respect them. It's almost like different groups of people live in separate moral universes, occasionally colliding like a wall of matter and a wall of antimatter. For the trans community, Rowling will always be a TERF first and the creator of Harry Potter second. But most people will know her foremost for Harry Potter and, only secondly, as a TERF -- assuming they even know what a TERF is.
Oh there definitely was on r/Games, but that subreddit has taken a "fuck it, get out" approach with certain political discussions because they just never go well on the subreddit. Pretty much any article that attempts to tackle social issues there is hidden by downvotes immediately, after all. But if you check out their Discord, the mod-team and members are big into allyship, pro-trans rights and positivity, and LGBT+ matters. Many members there are trans or LGBT themselves.
But they're not putting a moratorium on the game either, including their LGBT, trans, and Jewish members. The struggle seems to be between wanting to play the open-world Hogwarts game they've been dreaming of for 20 years while also not paying for it because fuck JKR. If anything, the Girlfriend Reviews harassment received more discussion because of how overboard and unwarranted that was, especially since Shelby (the eponymous Girlfriend) is Jewish herself and has strong feelings about the anti-Semitic depictions in a game that's centred around the most anti-Semitic imagery of the world.
The whole thing has been a giant mess. I think the aggressiveness with which many opposed the game has had the opposite of the intended effect.
I definitely missed these articles! Thank you for sharing. <3
EDIT: That first one is definitely in line with what I was hoping/expecting from coverage of that game. It felt good to read, so thank you again. :)
I was having some of the same feelings as you about the coverage of HL, and I specifically went to Polygon shortly after launch to see if they had a review (because I generally like the editorial line at Polygon and felt like they would do a good job of addressing the controversies around the game) and couldn't find one. It looks like the linked review came out on 02/17 which is a full week after the game launched. I'm really surprised it took that long to get a review out, but maybe they didn't get an advance copy or felt like they needed more time. I'd be very curious to know what happened there.
The Kotaku piece that was linked was published yesterday, and there's another opinion piece that's very critical of the game that also came out on 02/17 - the same date as the Polygon piece. Kotaku also doesn't have a full review of the game at all. I'm really not sure what happened here.
Those two sites are the two major gaming publications that I would have expected to consider the controversial aspects of the game the most, and they didn't really have anything published until a full week after the public release. And since Polygon doesn't score games anymore, it's not incorporated into the Metacritic score. It's odd that the negative coverage about the game lagged so far behind the positive, and it's a shame that the publications that are being more critical don't show up on Metacritic. Somebody mentioned elsewhere that they may not have gotten an advance review copies, which would be surprising to me. I assumed that as major gaming publications they would be getting review copies of any upcoming games. That may be a naive assumption on my part, though.
Oh wow, thanks for that. That is really messed up.
Hm, I wonder if they picked and chose who not to send advance copies to. Girlfriend Reviews received an advance copy nearly a week in advance of the game.
I feel it's the same thing that happens with any type of controversy in other games. There is a vocal minority online whenever there's a game that seems to abuse their players or from companies with unethical practices, but this never leads to the game failing. Fifa and similar sports games are examples of this, also Blizzard games. Society in general is either ignorant of the issues, very forgiving or very willing to ignore them.
As others mention, there's plenty of examples of similar behaviours in other industries. Look for instance at the World Cup last year, not only was it delivered by abusing human rights but it was a risky event to attend with Covid running rampant, which didn't stop people from going or tuning into it.
The fact that it surpasses Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn't surprising. Personally speaking, the entire series felt like a cash grab to begin with. And from what I've heard they mangled the characters and the plot so badly in the last movie they released they managed to anger a lot of the fans. On the contrary I'm hearing that Hogwarts Legacy was crafted with a great deal more care by people who actually know what they were doing and doesn't (to my knowledge) majorly break any of the characters or lore that the HP books and films have established.
I mean, really, the book that Fantastic Beasts is named after didn't even have a plot to begin with.
JK’s bigotry aside, from what I’ve seen on Twitch it doesn’t look like the kind of game I’d enjoy. Too many cutscenes and too much handholding. Skyrim set a high bar for empowering the player and getting out of your way. I judge every other vaguely RPG like game against it.
On a separate meta level from the Rowling stuff, the game's major success ($850m in revenue, >12m copies sold in the first two weeks: source) could hopefully