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Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Hogwarts came out a quarter of a year earlier and released on every platform compared to Zelda only being on one.
I wouldn't take that as a indictment that J.K.'s terf bullshit didn't have an impact on sales.
Yeah, and the fact that people basically can't talk about this game without mentioning it got boycotted because one of the people who makes money from it is a massive piece of transphobic shit is a small step forward all on its own
In that sense, it worked. Let's face it: The people who don't care about the author's raging bigotry were never going to be convinced regardless, but there were a lot of us who didn't even consider playing it because of the TERF.
Anecdotally, everyone I’ve talked to about it doesn’t care. They don’t like she’s a TERF and some even condemn her for it, but every single person I’ve talked to separates the world of Harry Potter from her. It basically has a life of its own and they couldn’t care less about JKR now, that’s what I’ve been able to surmise of people’s view of it now. It’s like having racist parents but not being labeled as one because you’re a separate entity.
I'm a big gamer, and was a massive HP fan. I did not buy the game, or even consider it, specifically because of JKR's bullshit.
I may be in the minority, but I guarantee I'm not the only one in this boat. So now you've talked to someone who cares, if you count this as talking.
And just to say a little more, no I didn't crusade against the game, nor do I villainize people who bought it and enjoyed it. I do think it's possible to enjoy art without liking the artist. Hell, my favorite book series of all time is the Ender's Game series, and Orson Scott Card is probably just as bad as JKR, though maybe not quite as famous/public about it.
But I can't bring myself to buy it. I'm trans, and her rhetoric, and how public it is, has been specifically harmful to me, directly. But that's just me. I won't tell other people how to live their lives or enjoy their free time, so long as they're not actively hurting others. And no, I don't consider buying a game where one person who is profiting from it might spend a sliver of that profit on anti-trans BS to be actively harming others, especially when she already has enough money to do whatever the hell she wants anyways.
This doesn't make a dent, and ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible anyways. I just hope that some portion of people who bought the game heard about the protests and maybe donated a fraction of what they paid for the game to some pro-LGBTQ groups. I have to believe there's at least a handful of people like that. I do believe that people are mostly good, and want to do good.
Yeesh, I wrote a lot more than I planned to here. I'll stop now lol.
I mean, I didn't consider playing it because I've never been a fan of Harry Potter, but Rowling's ramblings definitely didn't do anything to change my mind.
I was a moderately engaged HP fan before I learned what a colossally awful human the author is, but her TERF ramblings also made me realize there's quite a lot of racial and ethnic stereotypes baked into the franchise. It's probably the fastest I've ever totally abandoned an interest in a series. Even if we do separate the works from the author like so many fanbois suggest, they're still awful.
The whole situation with house elves, goblins and other intelligent magical creatures treated as inferior doesn't make the story feel to good. It might even be understandable if the heroes realized the deeper problems that couldn't be solved simply by fighting, but the protagonist ultimately just inherits a slave and becomes an enforcer for the status quo.
In retrospect it makes a lot of words about good and love and doing what's right feel like going through the motions rather than any real values.
Doesn't seem to have had a big impact I'd say
You csn say all you like, we literally have zero idea how many lost sales they had.
We know it didn't prevent it from becoming the year's most sold game, so whatever the impact it's pretty easy to shrug off
Buddy, its the worlds 5 largest IP, id be shocked if it didnt sell millions of copies regardless.
For all we know it could have lost out on 20 million sales, but its an untrackable metric.
I mean I'm sure it's a lot more cheerful for the to imagine the number as really high, but the fact of the matter is that in the end it still sold really well, becoming the top seller of that year.
A bit of a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ situation
Its nothing to do with cheerful, its to do with not knowing how effective a boycott was.
No one in their right mind would expect it to sell zero copies.
Tell me, how do you tell if a boycott was successful?
I'd expect it to meaningfully affect the sales and the maker/seller/whoever behind it. Being the most sold game of the year and presumably making a fat profit, I don't think it really did either.
So again, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, the fact that it took all year on all 4 major platforms to outsell one game from a much smaller but recognized IP thats restricted to one platform doesnt sound like a meaningful effect on its sales to you?
Because thats a very weird thing. It should not have taken so long to reach this point, given the size of hp as a franchise.
That's the cheerful way to look at it. It sure could've, hypothetically, sold two gazillions instead of one. Take that, game, the boycott must've worked! Yeah...
What exactly do you think detriment to sales means dude
I guess a single person boycotting it would be a detriment but when you're selling a boatload and making a hefty profit you aren't all that bothered by that one lost sale.
Did any of the other HP games ever top the charts?
If not, then there must be something special about this one other than IP. Especially since most of the other HP games came out before there was any JKR controversy.
Other than mobile games or Lego versions, there hasnt been a proper Harry Potter game since 13 years ago and from memory they were extremely average movie tie in games.
Its not a series like Pokemon or Zelda that sees frequent releases. It being the first real game, and done beautifully (graphics/ recreation wise) is certainly the biggest selling point.