Hogwarts Legacy by Lance Oczepek
Hogwarts Legacy is the newest Harry Potter video game. Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the 1800s around 100 years after the original Harry Potter series that was released by J.K. Rowling takes place. Hogwarts Legacy is an almost completely open-world game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Brothers Games. Hogwarts Legacy allows the player to explore the wizarding world and follow their own path through Hogwarts as a student. Hogwarts Legacy also Gives the player the chance to use over 36 spells, 26 of which can be used at any time. Prior to launch, Hogwarts Legacy seemed as if it was on track to be the newest hit game. This isn't true though, so what happened?
Before Hogwarts Legacy was even released, J.K. Rowling, the author of the original Harry Potter books, faced some controversy. J.K. Rowling started making transphobic comments to the public. Of course, these comments went viral and J.K. Rowling was labeled as “anti-trans” by the general public. This all happened prior to the release of Hogwarts Legacy and J.K. Rowling would make a lot of money if the game did well. The new game with all of its new and game-breaking mechanics were being overshadowed by this new controversy. People started to have boycotts where they would not purchase or play Hogwarts Legacy because they did not want to support someone who made such offensive comments.
One big ripple of these boycotts was felt at the Game Awards this year. The Game Awards are held every year and are basically the Grammys of the gaming industry. People can vote on their favorite games all around the world to see if their game can win some of the various categories such as best action/adventure or the well-known Game of the Year. The shock of the game awards is that it was not nominated for a single category. Normally a game of the same magnitude as Hogwarts Legacy would have had many nominations and would have won the categories it was nominated for. On the contrary, Hogwarts Legacy did not make a single appearance at the game awards. Did the comments made by J.K. Rowling affect this? Did the boycotts work? It seems that all of these factors led to Hogwarts Legacy not being nominated at all for the Game Awards.
Before Hogwarts Legacy was even released, J.K. Rowling, the author of the original Harry Potter books, faced some controversy. J.K. Rowling started making transphobic comments to the public. Of course, these comments went viral and J.K. Rowling was labeled as “anti-trans” by the general public. This all happened prior to the release of Hogwarts Legacy and J.K. Rowling would make a lot of money if the game did well. The new game with all of its new and game-breaking mechanics were being overshadowed by this new controversy. People started to have boycotts where they would not purchase or play Hogwarts Legacy because they did not want to support someone who made such offensive comments.
One big ripple of these boycotts was felt at the Game Awards this year. The Game Awards are held every year and are basically the Grammys of the gaming industry. People can vote on their favorite games all around the world to see if their game can win some of the various categories such as best action/adventure or the well-known Game of the Year. The shock of the game awards is that it was not nominated for a single category. Normally a game of the same magnitude as Hogwarts Legacy would have had many nominations and would have won the categories it was nominated for. On the contrary, Hogwarts Legacy did not make a single appearance at the game awards. Did the comments made by J.K. Rowling affect this? Did the boycotts work? It seems that all of these factors led to Hogwarts Legacy not being nominated at all for the Game Awards.