Well, it’s finally time. If you haven’t heard of the long, lengthy, plethora of controversies associated with the Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy then you have truly managed to take refuge in some well protected corners of the Internet. However, if you’re like the 95% rest of us then it’s probably all you’ve heard about since the game's release. I wanted to stand strong and not do an article on this, but as time passed and the title earned more and more traction, I can’t help but recap the events that have unfolded and where that has led to. On the brightside I have not seen a single Harry Potter movie in my entire lifetime, so I can 100% guarantee for sure no strings attached that I will be safe from any bias whatsoever (never trust anyone who says shit like that). 

So what happened so far? Hogwarts Legacy released for the major consoles and PC on February 10th, but actually if you paid a little extra then it opened up on February 7th. Since then the Internet has been waged in a war between those who bought the game and those who either boycotted it or didn’t care enough to buy it to begin with. Why? Well the author of Harry Potter has said quite the “interesting” statements over the years. This would be way too long of an article to explain the entire history, but just know that trans people and those associated with them aren’t too fond of the comments JK Rowling has made about their existence. Anyway, the game came out and divided the world. But perhaps boycotting wasn’t far enough. Perhaps feeling a bit dissatisfied given the game’s success, those who hated it began spoiling the story all across social media hoping to further ruin the game’s ability to grab an audience. Moreover they posted many memes and messages that by buying the game you are supporting a terrible person and therefore should be ashamed. So how did our protest end? Well, the game is currently the ninth Steam game of all time with the most concurrent players. Oh, and it rose to the top of Twitch as the most viewed game of February right now.

I'm afraid nothing could take down the Just Chatting game though, it's truly nothing to play with.

Wherever you stand it would be unfair to say the game was anything other than a big success, at least from a business perspective. But is it still a horrible situation where people are supporting a piece of shit just so they can be a wizard? Eh, not quite. Let’s be real, outside of creating the property JK Rowling had nothing to do with this game. She wasn’t in there coding the battles, she wasn’t producing the 3D models, and she certainly wasn’t conducting the soundtrack. There were countless other people who worked on the game whose livelihood depended on the game’s and studio’s success. If you want to boycott the game to spite the author then by all means go ahead, but condemning others for enjoying a game based on a franchise that is downright magical to many across the world where said author probably wasn’t even involved that much, seems out of pocket to me. Being honest, we all likely support some product or service that’s sourced in a shitty way or owned by a shitty person. And I’m not saying that to imply we should just give up and never boycott anything, but tearing non-boycotters down to seem higher when these same people likely buy child labor-sourced products from another country is at best ironic and at worst depressing.

So that about sums up the situation so far. In short, a lot of buzz but not much real action to prevent this game from being a major success through a financial lens. I have no opinion or information about the actual gameplay but I hope the fans are enjoying it. And I hope that those who did boycott the game can feel proud they stood for something and can be happy with that sentiment and not attack others on Twitter for clout points. Have you played Hogwarts Legacy? Were you aware of the Internet storm surrounding it? Grab your wand, put on your robe, and fly down on your broomstick to the comments below!