Harry Potter Video Games

The worst time would have been right after the shitstorm.

Thread title changed per request.

The problem is that main source of income are the books and the films, not video games. To boycott this game is to put a band-aid on a tiny leak while the rest of the dam is gushing tons of water above you with larger cracks.

The only remedies, given how huge and popular Harry Potter is, would be for Warner Bros to somehow wrestle the IP from its creator and make it their own or Rowling to make apology for her actions and owe up to them.

We can't fix the world but we can decide what we, personally, spend our own money on.

Edited by Perseus on Sep 18th 2020 at 5:48:33 AM

Perhaps, but I prefer to solve these long term problems overall and not pretend my individual action can make a difference (like the lies the big companies made regarding recycling plastic and individual responsibility).

I don't see how saying "I'm not going to buy this because I don't want my money to support this creator" is 'pretending' anything. It's not like anyone is posturing about how morally superior they are to do so.

Edited by Perseus on Sep 18th 2020 at 5:53:52 AM

Well, lately I've been reading an article of how big companies manipulated the public into thinking individual responsibility and recycling plastic will solve our plastic and pollution problem while they themselves don't do anything.

As thus, I have this recent desire to do more than just personal boycott due to the feeling of helplessness in the grand scheme of things.

That almost seems like a non sequitur to the issue of a creator being personally problematic though? You can't "solve" that. You can't force someone to not be a shitty person, and no one who's avoiding the franchise because of Rowling's transphobic views thinks they are doing that. They are simply choosing not to personally support a shitty person.

Edited by Perseus on Sep 17th 2020 at 6:22:21 PM

What a moral dilemma.

I just want to enjoy a game, but i don't want to support a transphobe.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 17th 2020 at 1:25:17 AM

I'll just quote myself from Twitter on this one:

JKR has already made her money from this, she won't suffer if people boycott this game over her being a terrible person. But the developers are the ones who are going to suffer and who are going to get the blame for the game not selling well.

Excellent.

The gaming industry is stressful as is. Let’s not punish hard working devs.

EDIT: In times like this, one must question who benefits the most.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 17th 2020 at 5:50:12 AM

x5

Sure, individuals who recycle are not contributing the most to pollution and those issues and companies pushing this agenda that somehow your neighbor sam not recycling is the problem is the real problem, but they doesn't exactly mean I should stop recycling either? It doesn't make personal recycling less of a right thing to do?

And I do support the developers and they really shouldn't be blamed for Jo-demort running her mouth. However... I do think there is a limit we should discuss where it crosses a line? I've seen so many sentiments lately of "SUPPORT THE GAME. SUPPORT THE DEVS. SKIPPING THE GAME WON'T PUNISH THE CEO" and I get it because video game development is such a dumpster fire lately and we should support good people but... I am also getting a bit tired of this feeling that dev teams are being held with a gun pointed at them regardless of the actual product output. With an endless cycle that never actually targets the persons causing the problems to begin with?

And, sure, Maybe that really doesn't apply here since She Who Shall Not Be Named is so far removed from the production, but it's still something we as a consumer base ought to discuss at some point. For example, a lot of the devs on Dragon Age: Inquisition faced a hellish production cycle and much abuse and wanted the game to fail... only for it to succeed and just solidify the horrible production trends for the next two games. If fans before the game release rallied to support the devs by buying the game, they might have just caused a bigger issue. Do you see what I'm getting at?

I also don't think it's wrong for long time Potter fans who used to adore this franchise to just be *done* with it after the awful things she's said. It's increasingly hard to separate her views from the property; such as her depiction of goblins kinda being anti-semetic or her description of Rita Skeeta being rather uncomfortable after her comments about trans people. Those fans aren't wrong to un-enroll from Hogwarts and no longer consider it home anymore. I was always taught to spend my money on what I wanted to support; put your money where your mouth is.

If CE Os are going to be stupid and not read the room on why a project isn't looked kindly upon right now, that's the CE Os being utterly stupid. I don't know why you'd blame customers for not supporting the devs when it sounds like the devs are at the mercy of stupid execs. I feel like you're blaming the wrong person.

A few perspectives on the topic I found helpful.

TL, DR, the devs already got paid and the sales are more likely to affect the IP than their income or portfolios.

I recall the same discussion happened about the Ender's Game movie but pretty much everyone who worked on that turned out fine despite it bombing. The cast is still in movies, Lionsgate moved on to success with the John Wick series, Digital Domain went to work on Marvel films, screenwriters Benioff and Weiss found too much success thereafter, and the whole thing just ended up being a footnote on resumes.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Sep 17th 2020 at 8:12:28 AM

Buy the game used. Rowling doesn't get a cent off of anything but the first sale.

Unless she goes to jail, nothing's ever going to affect her negatively.

As much as Rowling deserves this, Warner Brothers' game division has gotten into shenanigans lately with their treatment of this franchise alongside their female employees.

The only benefit to this being PS5 only is that I won't have to worry about buying it. Because as much as I don't want to give Rowling more money to spread her views, HP is what got me into reading and still hods a place in my heart so I just know that if it was on Switch and it turned out good I'd cave and get it eventually.

It means that we should go above and beyond the personal contribution. Not just boycott a tiny fraction of the pie, but go after the main root of the problem. Like checking to see if your recycled items are truly being recycled and not thrown into the landfill.

Wow, this is an interesting thread to read.

The first page is about a bunch of people in 2014 talking about how cool a proper, high-profile Hogwarts game would be. The very next page skips ahead six years and opens with the announcement of that very game — which is then followed by a whole lot of people saying how they used to be excited for a game like that but now can't, in good conscience, support it.

Oh yes, how could I forget that this is WBI? I'd say that there's a >30% chance that WBI can turn this into a dumpster fire so bad you don't have to worry about the ethics of supporting Rowling. So yeah. Silver linings.

It takes years to build up a reputation, but mere seconds to torpedo it.

x8

She Who Must Not Be Named has already been paid. She won't see a cent regardless of the success or failure of the game. It's more the continued success or failure of the brand at this point.

Also, used games are kinda becoming a thing of the past at this point. I can't get physical editions of most of the games I play anymore. Renting was never really a thing for PC and some consoles outright do not have disc drives. The used game market is disappearing.

x3

Yeah, I feel so strange. Because I'm pretty sure the first post is from my old account that I lost access to a few years ago. So I'm very much having a personal 180 here.

Edited by InkDagger on Sep 17th 2020 at 11:14:50 AM

Just a little over half a decade ago, we were still going, "Please, JK, give us more about Hogwarts and the Wizarding World."

Then we started going, "Please, JK, shut up about Hogwarts and the Wizarding World. No one needed to know about that poop thing."

And nowadays, it's "Please, JK, shut up. Just... just shut up."

It sounds like the best way the developers can escape JKR's shadow on this is to either make a large donation to charities supporting Trans people, give the player the option to make a trans character or to have trans characters in the game who are respectful and not exploitative.

I felt really mean saying that but who am I to complain? People want karma and here we can kill two birds with one stone.

Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Sep 17th 2020 at 2:28:58 PM