Hogwarts Legacy - Not as good as Dog Kid University

[kensei]

19 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

I think the person it'll most impact is the individual deciding they don't want it on their conscience. And that holds regardless of how much weight you, I, or anyone else places on that.

 

How very Protestant of you.

 

The stated reason for this is try and cause some sort of financial impact: "Don't fund hate". 

 

If it was actually successful in its goals, it would cause minimal financial impact to JK Rowling and quite a lot of financial impact to people just doing their jobs.

 

I don't particularly think this will be successful, especially since if you look at polls of the general public Rowling's comments are certainly not on some sort of extreme. But modern media is made by hundreds of people with varied opinions most of whom you know nothing about, and funded by people whose views that this forum would hate, even on the left. Harry Potter has zero to say on trans issues and I'll be shocked if this game does either. Just seems like windmilling without any care about who gets hit by the flailing arms.

[Protocol Penguin]

1 hour ago, kensei said:

 

So don't buy it if you don't want to. The "I don't want to fund hate" is spurious. Rowling has more than enough money to fund whatever she wants. Harry Potter will keep trucking on regardless of the success of this game.

I guess you regard it wasn’t worth the governments of the free world sanctioning all of Vlad Putin’s oligarch mates, because, hey, they already have their billions in the bank.

[kensei]

Just now, Protocol Penguin said:

I guess you can think it wasn’t worth the governments of the free world sanctioning all of Vlad Putin’s oligarch mares, because, hey, they already have their billions in the bank.

 

I was going to respond, but sorry my eyes just rolled out of my head.

[Vemsie]

Avalanche just can't catch a break. First Disney shuts down Disney Infinity and now they want to clearly make the ultimate Harry Potter game, only to have Rowling's shitty opinions smearing the brand. I mean, it will clearly be a succesful game, probably the biggest game of the year, but it's still a shitty situation.

[Fry Crayola]

34 minutes ago, kensei said:

The stated reason for this is try and cause some sort of financial impact: "Don't fund hate". 

 

I think you just have a different interpretation to others on that. Causing a financial impact is one reading, another is simply knowing your money isn't going to someone objectionable. You don't need to make any impact on anyone else to satisfy the latter, nor do you need to know the opinions of everyone involved in the game before you make a decision based entirely on your own conscience.

 

If someone doesn't want to buy this because of Rowling's beliefs, that's absolutely fine, and I think it's a weird thing to rail against.

[bradigor]

1 minute ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

I think you just have a different interpretation to others on that. Causing a financial impact is one reading, another is simply knowing your money isn't going to someone objectionable. You don't need to make any impact on anyone else to satisfy the latter.

 

Pretty much this. I know my £40-£70 will make no difference to JK, WB or even those working on the game*. But I would rather my money didn't go towards that hateful cunt. 

 

*If the individual devs had a joint PayPal or something, I'd happily just send them the money direct. But as it is, the developers see fuck all of the profits, that usually goes in the pockets of the CEOs and the like.  

 

 

 

[MK-1601]

"JKR isn't coding this by hand so it's ok"

"Why are you protesting this and not [insert country]?"

"Boycotting this will hurt the devs"

"I literally have no idea how any aspect of the adult world works, but I can cut and paste the same five stupid nonsensical arguments under any bad press about this festering contractual obligation dog egg of a game"

 

Are hundreds of sub-100-follower teenagers in Twitter reply threads genuinely stupid enough to believe that the IP owner doesn't get paid for a game that uses their licensed IP, or are Warner Bros running an astroturf (or should that be astroTERF lololol) campaign?

[jonamok]

If it’s not shit (lbh, it looks shit), and I cared about the franchise (I don’t), I’d still just wait a few weeks and buy from CEX. I’d rather pay them than her. Fuck Rowling.

[Harsin]

Separating art from artist is deeply personal thing that differs from person to person and everyone has their own personal boundaries. If you want to play a Harry Potter game then that's fine. I'm not going to judge you. But please don’t serve up the steaming pile of horseshit that you're doing it because you're some kind of brave battling philanthropist doing it for the good of the poor QA testers.

[footle]

The money Rowling will make is irrelevant to her, rather than the cultural currency. But a New Labour supporting anti-trans activist has a load of cultural currency in the types of media we all despise, so she’s not going to be losing much of that anywhere anyway. 
 

Viewed in that light the game and films fade to irrelevance, except that every time they’re mentioned it’s a another communications channel that gets filled with discussion of Rowling and her views.

[BossSaru]

Apparently from the game:

Spoiler

 

That's right folks. The plot involves big-nosed bankers, who look like images taken from The Elders of Zion, out to disrupt the social order.

 

[Majora]

The state of play on this has about 5 million combined views across the three uploads on Playstation's channel alone. It's going to be absolutely huge isn't it? 😑

[Unofficial Who]

17 hours ago, kensei said:

 

I'm sure J K Rowling will miss the second billion. Wait, no, she'll not notice.

 

The developer or QA tester with a mortgage and family will definitely miss their job though.

 

I...I guess despite deciding to skip it on the weird grounds that what JK says and promotes nowadays makes the everyday life of some of my friends worse and I should take the moral high ground and buy this regardless. 

 

A successful moral judo gambit!

 

But hang on, ignoring that post launch a lot of QA is laid off regardless doesn't this mean that the solution here is that I buy ALL the games? And why is it that in cases like this I have to prioritise buying games from bad workplaces or from creators I don't agree with as the only method of making things better?

 

Mind you Sterling posted this on their twitter

 

 

Thread is full of people saying they'll buy it regardless.

 

[makkuwata]

I had never heard the term “video essay” before watching that trailer. Now the algorithm has a fun new world of dramas to recommend for me at every step.

[kensei]

3 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

 

I...I guess I'm despite deciding to skip it on the weird grounds that what JK says and promotes nowadays makes the everyday life of some of my friends worse and take the moral high ground and buy this regardless. 

 

A successful moral judo gambit!

 

But hang on, ignoring that post launch a lot of QA is laid off regardless doesn't this mean that the solution here is that I buy ALL the games? And why is it that in cases like this I have to prioritise buying games from bad workplaces or from creators I don't agree with as the only method of making things better?

 

Mind you Sterling posted this on their twitter

 

 

Thread is full of people saying they'll buy it regardless.

 

 

It's not "buy the game to support the devs". It's "the only people who will actually be hurt by this are the devs".

 

Also the pay point there is absolutely spurious. I was paid for my work last month. Losing my job would cause serious problems for my family, especially as I'm the only earner at the minute.

[jonny_rat]

14 hours ago, kensei said:

 

How very Protestant of you.

 

The stated reason for this is try and cause some sort of financial impact: "Don't fund hate". 

 

If it was actually successful in its goals, it would cause minimal financial impact to JK Rowling and quite a lot of financial impact to people just doing their jobs.

 

I don't particularly think this will be successful, especially since if you look at polls of the general public Rowling's comments are certainly not on some sort of extreme. But modern media is made by hundreds of people with varied opinions most of whom you know nothing about, and funded by people whose views that this forum would hate, even on the left. Harry Potter has zero to say on trans issues and I'll be shocked if this game does either. Just seems like windmilling without any care about who gets hit by the flailing arms.

 

Any campaign around this should focus on future games. The impact to Rowling's finances by purchasing or not purchasing this game: but the viability of the HP to produce successful games is much more important and could have a huge impact on her personally down the line.

 

Besides this, the 'what about the devs?' line always feels odd. It suggests that certain demographics or segments of players are assumed purchasers, and if they don't, they're denying the developers money that was somehow assigned to them? There are literally hundreds of games I - and you - don't buy every month. 

[jonny_rat]

Also: there's very little likelihood that a campaign like this would affect sales to the point of causing mass job losses or cuts at the studio. What it could conceivably do is affect them enough to demonstrate that an HP isn't instant gangbusters and likely to struggle at the margins, and if that's the case it's not going to translate into an ongoing franchise which is where the real money is.

[macosx]

Looks really a detailed recreation of the HP word, I’m in. 

[JPL]

As much as I don’t like Rowling, my youngest son loves Potter, so I’ll have to buy it for him. He’s not old enough to understand about her trans stance and I’m not willing to drag him into all that nonsense yet.

[Gambit]

11 hours ago, jonamok said:

If it’s not shit (lbh, it looks shit), and I cared about the franchise (I don’t), I’d still just wait a few weeks and buy from CEX. I’d rather pay them than her. Fuck Rowling.

 

This. If you're still deeply invested in the Harry Potter world but can't give Rowling any of your money, then buy second hand. It's what I do with certain companies who I don't want to give money too.

[Hello Goaty ♥]

This is what we really want! 

 

[Isaac]

@kensei did you read the brilliant article I posted in this thread written by a transgender journalist at Gamespot a few pages back? 

 

I can't be arsed to refute what you are saying point by point but it covers it all in a very even handed and fair context, at length, and is really worth a read for anybody who isn't familiar with the issues around this. 

 

@tronied I appreciate it's long but if you're genuinely interested in understanding the context it's fantastic, it's an impassioned but entirely fair summary of the issues, the debate, what's happened, and why it is hurtful for transgender people: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jk-rowlings-anti-transgender-stance-and-hogwarts-legacy/1100-6501632/

 

The writer doesn't even argue that people should cancel JK Rowling, or not buy the game - she rightly makes the point that it is up to each of us to make an individual decision.

 

However, the final paragraph is perhaps the best of the article, and should put to bed this entire debate that we are having with @kensei, because I don't see how you refute it really:

 

You're not a bad person if you want to play Hogwarts Legacy. Many trans people themselves are planning to buy the game despite their justified anger towards Rowling. Yet, the important thing is not to condemn the game or renounce your love of Harry Potter; it's to wrestle with the complexity of it and decide for yourself. Trans people don't get to ignore the pain the franchise has become intrinsically linked to, and those who wish to care for them shouldn't get to do so, either.

 

Many will ignore this article and others like it in order to turn a blind eye to the harm done or seek absolution for their choice in buying the game. Some will even (and already have) proudly proclaim their forth-coming purchase in order to express their disdain for having to think about trans people at all. You don't get to defend Rowling or Harry Potter and not understand what that actually means to a trans person, or the ramification it has for all of us, not just trans people.

 

So supporting Hogwarts Legacy, a game about fighting magical fantasy bigots, isn't wrong, but ignoring its legacy within actual bigotry would be.

 

[Isaac]

1 hour ago, macosx said:

Looks really a detailed recreation of the HP word, I’m in. 

 

Not meaning to single you out specifically here @macosx, but I wanted to use your post to make a point.

 

JK Rowling's toxic views have tainted this game so much that posts like this are hard to take at face value, without attempting to figure out whether:

 

1. You don't want to think about trans people at all, and are turning a blind eye to the issues
2. You agree with JK Rowling's views
3. You actively dislike trans people

 

It's tough, isn't it, to separate that baggage from people who just like Harry Potter. And this is why JK Rowling is such a hateful arsehole. Because not only has she ruined HP for millions of people, but she has now made 'liking HP' a wolf whistle for trans-exclusionary politics. 

 

And that's completely fucked.

 

It is going to cause untold drama across the internet in gaming circles, and I don't see how it doesn't end up badly for transgender people, as the backlash to the backlash will be even worse. It's just a really fucking grim situation.

[Harsin]

In America WB has been doing its best to separate Rowling from the Harry Potter brand. I understand she got the bare minimum mention on the recent Harry Potter reunion special they did. America has more than its fair share of transphobes, but it tends to be exactly the people you'd expect like Republicans, Fox News and Rednecks. What it doesn’t have so much is the middle-class TERFs spewing hate speech while patting themselves on the back over how progressive they are in Guardian columns. I don't know how true it is but I've heard that other developed countries are baffled by the levels of transphobia in the UK.

[Captain Kelsten]

24 minutes ago, Isaac said:

 

Not meaning to single you out specifically here @macosx, but I wanted to use your post to make a point.

 

JK Rowling's toxic views have tainted this game so much that posts like this are hard to take at face value, without attempting to figure out whether:

 

1. You don't want to think about trans people at all, and are turning a blind eye to the issues
2. You agree with JK Rowling's views
3. You actively dislike trans people

 

It's tough, isn't it, to separate that baggage from people who just like Harry Potter. And this is why JK Rowling is such a hateful arsehole. Because not only has she ruined HP for millions of people, but she has now made 'liking HP' a wolf whistle for trans-exclusionary politics. 

 

And that's completely fucked.

 

It is going to cause untold drama across the internet in gaming circles, and I don't see how it doesn't end up badly for transgender people, as the backlash to the backlash will be even worse. It's just a really fucking grim situation.

Maybe he just likes Harry Potter? There doesn’t have to be some alt right agenda behind it. He just likes Harry Potter. I get you’re passionate about this, but sometimes it’s just as simple as someone likes a thing. 
 

My wife loves Harry Potter. It reminds her of growing up as the daughter of a school caretaker, living on the school site, being in the school after hours, feeling like she was having adventures and sneaking around in the dark as a child. She’s now a university lecturer. She has many LGBTQ students. She’s a big part of the uni’s equality agenda, promoting the rights of people who might not otherwise be heard. 
 

It’s fine for her to be all of these things. 

[jonny_rat]

6 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

Maybe he just likes Harry Potter? There doesn’t have to be some alt right agenda behind it. He just likes Harry Potter. I get you’re passionate about this, but sometimes it’s just as simple as someone likes a thing. 

 

This is not just explicitly addressed in the post you're replying to; it's the whole point of it 

[Captain Kelsten]

1 minute ago, jonny_rat said:

 

This is not just explicitly addressed in the post you're replying to; it's the whole point of it 

No I get that, I’m agreeing with Isaac’s point whilst badly trying to make my own. 

[jonny_rat]

3 minutes ago, Doctor Shark said:

No I get that, I’m agreeing with Isaac’s point whilst badly trying to make my own. 

Ach sorry! I think it's a really good distillation of the situation: if you're someone who just likes the books and the universe, then Rowling has done a good job of making others question your motives. The worst thing is that I think she knows this.

[Captain Kelsten]

6 minutes ago, jonny_rat said:

Ach sorry! I think it's a really good distillation of the situation: if you're someone who just likes the books and the universe, then Rowling has done a good job of making others question your motives. The worst thing is that I think she knows this.

No need to apologise. It’s what happens when you have an idea for a response, then your kid tells you they’ve dropped jam covered toast on the dog, the Asda shopping arrives and the bacon burns whilst you’re at the door and then you sit down to finish the post and can’t really remember what point you were trying to make but instead of just discarding it, you forge ahead. 

[ryodi]

48 minutes ago, Isaac said:

It is going to cause untold drama across the internet in gaming circles, and I don't see how it doesn't end up badly for transgender people, as the backlash to the backlash will be even worse. It's just a really fucking grim situation.

Users are not allowed to talk  about this game on Resetera which is one way to avoid or at least hide the drama.