The transphobic wizard game isn't even good

Solving the easiest moral dilemma in the world in Naughty List News #91

Feb 12, 2023

This week, the long-awaited Hogwarts Legacy game launched to immediate controversy. That’s because J.K. Rowling, the author and rights holder to the Harry Potter franchise of books, movies, and games, uses her impressive fortune to make the lives of transgender people materially worse. And the game itself was a mixed bag of missed opportunities.

Hogwarts Legacy is not the usual type of game I cover in this newsletter, but I want to discuss it because of the game’s material impact on you, dear reader. Although I do not identify with the LGTBQIA+ label myself (despite what my moniker might suggest), I know that many of you do. And I want you to know that I do not accept transphobia in my community.

Besides that, how could I resist talking about the easiest moral dilemma in the world? Buy and play an at-best average AAA game, or let my trans friends know I love and support them? A tough choice indeed!

How bad is the transphobia really?

J.K. Rowling identifies as a “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” or TERF which means she does not believe transgender women are women. She often conflates the concepts of sex and gender, tweeting in 2020:

If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. […] Erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

Of course, reasonable people can disagree about the daily struggles different types of women face. But the answer to that conundrum should never be to draw a circle around the group you happen to identify with and call those “real” women while pushing everyone else out.

Do transgender women face different struggles than cisgendered women? Absolutely. But scratch the surface of these differences and you’ll find that both groups struggle with hair in unwanted places, finding a dress that actually fits, and what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society.

There’s honestly too much to cover here. Glamour published a terrific article that breaks down J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people much better than I could. Suffice it to say that her comments about transgendered people are not one-off instances or fat-fingered mistakes that have been misinterpreted; these are deeply-held beliefs.

What makes J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender women so dangerous (she often, and conveniently, forgets about transgender men) is that she is a self-made billionaire with a huge audience and the owner of the biggest book franchise in the world. And she puts her money where her mouth is.

Rowling often writes about groups like LGB Alliance vocal support, tweeting “#IStandWithLGBAlliance” after a recent court case. She fails to mention that the group could lose its charity status in the UK over its harmful conduct. Instead of promoting the rights of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, the LGB Alliance almost exclusively rallies against the rights of transgender people. For example, they’ve lobbied to exclude transgender people from a proposed ban on conversion therapy in the UK, which is the harmful practice of trying to change people’s gender identity or sexual orientation. Conversion therapy is already banned or limited in several other countries.

Because of these lobbying efforts, Rowling’s support of the LGB Alliance materially harms transgender youth in the UK and worldwide.

But what about the developers?

Everyone who worked on Hogwarts Legacy has already been paid. Whether that’s the programmers writing the code, QA finding and reporting bugs, or HR denying time-off requests, game companies' employees are all either salaried or temporary contractors.

Whether the game does well or not has no material impact on the money these workers receive in their bank accounts. At best, a game that scores well and sells many copies might result in a one-time bonus, but there’s no such thing as royalties for game industry workers. I have personally not received a single cent in royalties for the code I’ve written in my AAA game programming career, even though it continues to power multiple gaming franchises. Perhaps I should talk to my local union representative about that.

Note that this is quite unlike book authors, who receive royalties for their work long after publication. Although most authors’ royalties aren’t exactly enough to live off, that isn’t the case for the author of a franchise worth literally billions of dollars. In the 26 years since the publication of the first Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling has sold an absolutely staggering 600 million copies in the series, making Harry Potter the best-selling book series of all time.

Because Rowling owns the rights to the Harry Potter franchise, which is a very business-savvy thing to do, game developers like Hogwarts Legacy’s Avalanche Software must negotiate a license agreement with her to use her intellectual property. In the case of Harry Potter, this was likely worth millions of dollars, although I’m obviously not privy to the details.

In short, when you purchase Hogwarts Legacy, you are putting more money into a well-documented transphobe's pocket than the developers will likely ever see.

It’s not even a good game

Last week, a screenshot did the rounds on Twitter from a pre-release version of Hogwarts Legacy that made me wince and suck in air through my teeth. As you may know, my day job is UI programming for AAA games, and I know a stinker when I see one. From this screenshot alone I suspect that somebody higher up told the developers to “make it more like Destiny” and did not give much more direction beyond that.

Sure, some critics called the game “amazing,” giving it a 9/10, but they also had to put in a gigantic disclaimer in the middle of their review containing mealy-mouthed statements like, “IGN has always and will continue to champion human rights causes and support people speaking with their wallets in whatever manner they choose.”

Yet that IGN review has many of the same criticisms that this 5/10 review by Digital Trends has: The story is nonsensical, the gameplay uninspired, and the combat repetitive. Take off the Harry Potter veneer, and it’s just another open-world checkbox adventure.

Read another book

Harry Potter was a big part of my childhood. I was ten years old when Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban was published, and I devoured the first three books in my native Dutch. Then, I read books four through seven in English rather than wait for translations. I felt like I was growing up right alongside Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

So I believe people when they say that Harry Potter is very important to them. The series was very important to me too. But I’ve outgrown it, and I’ll think you find that so have you. And is it worth hanging on to a magical universe that gives us joy if it person who financially benefits the most gives our trans friends so much grief?

If you’re still hankering for cool, witchy content, check out Sex Positive Gaming’s video about the top Harry Potter parody games. Even better, for the same price as one (1) copy of Hogwarts Legacy, you can get 60+ games about witches and witchcraft from trans creators in the Trans Witches are Witches bundle on Itch.io.

It’s a free Internet world out there, and you can do what you want. But in the wise words of renowned author Chuck Tingle: When you buy a video game from loud anti-transgender people, other buds can then point out that you are not being their ally.

Writing Wrap-Up 📖

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