Submitted by windowhihi t3_10w1ol9 in nottheonion
DJWGibson t1_j7krihl wrote
Reply to comment by maybe_Lena in Witch Hunt For Hogwarts Legacy Content Creators Ongoing by windowhihi
Very true.
However, she was paid for the license to make this game well before she outted herself on Twitter and doesn't make money if it sells well or fails. The only people who have a financial state in the game are the designers, developers, and team at the game company. And their families.
By trying to hurt Rowling by boycotting this game you're doing literally nothing to her and just hurting innocent people, who often explicitly do not share or support her views.
roscid t1_j7mr5aj wrote
Aren't all those people salaried, and therefore already got paid?
DJWGibson t1_j7mzyrw wrote
Yes and no.
Most game companies like this pay bonuses based on reviews and sales, so the better the game does the better a bonus the team will get.
And game companies also need to pay off the development costs of making the game and pay back the investors who paid to create the game. After years of development, a AAA game like this will be millions in the red, and that needs to come from sales.
If the game doesn't sell well, the company will need to lay off staff or even declare bankruptcy to protect itself from its investors. Which means all those staff will suddenly be employed.
roscid t1_j7n1feo wrote
That's just the risk and the cost of doing business, though. No one should feel obligated to buy a product whose values they don't agree with so that the company who made it can get its investment back. Everyone involved in making the game is aware of the potential that it may flop going into it, and in fact that is statistically by far the more likely scenario.
I know it sucks to be dragged down by association, but we didn't know then what we know now and that is nobody's fault. I still think it is perfectly reasonable to boycott the game on principle alone, regardless of whose paycheck it may harm.
Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that the game devs get a bonus if the game does well, but JKR doesn't. Do we actually know either of those to be true? I don't think it matters either way, I just find it hard to believe.
DJWGibson t1_j7nobr3 wrote
>No one should feel obligated to buy a product whose values they don't agree with so that the company who made it can get its investment back. Everyone involved in making the game is aware of the potential that it may flop going into it, and in fact that is statistically by far the more likely scenario.
True. But in this case, it's not the product whose values they don't agree with. The designers of the game seem to support trans rights and have even included a potential trans wizard in the game.
And I think they thought the game was a pretty safe bet when they were going in. When you start to produce a AAA video game based on the most beloved book series of the last twenty-five years having it "flop" doesn't seem likely. Not a lot of AAA games flop.
We're talking about people with mortgages and health insurance and kids going to school who's livelihood will be destroyed by this. And people are just shrugging them off as collateral damage to thumb their nose at a second richest author in the world who won't even notice the dip in her ridiculous net wealth.
>I know it sucks to be dragged down by association, but we didn't know then what we know now and that is nobody's fault.
Nobody's fault except the people declaring guilt by association.
>I still think it is perfectly reasonable to boycott the game on principle alone, regardless of whose paycheck it may harm.
Even though it has zero impact on the person you want to boycott, as they've already been paid, had no input on the game, and are unaffected by its success or failure?
Boycotting this to get back at Rowling is as effective and meaningful as boycotting Alan Wake II. She'll probably make more money just from the insurance on the billion she already has in the bank.
But, okay, boycott if you want.
That's fine. It really is.
But that's also not what's happing here. There's a LOT of harassment being directed at people who aren't boycotting, which isn't cool and just makes the anti-Rowling movement look bad. Getting mad at people because they're not joining in on two-minute hate.
>Also, I'm skeptical of the claim that the game devs get a bonus if the game does well, but JKR doesn't. Do we actually know either of those to be true? I don't think it matters either way, I just find it hard to believe.
Licenses tend to be paid in advance. That's how licenses work. You pay for the rights knowing the name will bring in more people and allow you to sell more copies than an unrelated IP allowing you to recoup the added expense of having to pay for the license.
If the license holder also got more money because the game was a success, that would defeat the purpose licensing IP.
Okay... she might get some royalties. But sales of Harry Potter grew in 2022. Philsopher's Stone was still the 2nd best selling children's book. So even if she gets a chunk of money from the game... it will be peanuts to what she's already making from continued book sales.
So it's killing a game studio and wrecking a bunch of lives and harassing a bunch of other video game players for literally no effect. For a game that Rowling cares so little about she couldn't even be bothered to hyper on her Twitter with a single retweet,
roscid t1_j7odz02 wrote
> We're talking about people with mortgages and health insurance and kids going to school who's livelihood will be destroyed by this.
Sorry, but not matter how you spin it, it was always a possibility the game would flop. Nothing is a safe bet. Therefore, guilting people who choose to boycott the game for ruining the livelihoods of the developers is just inherently silly to me. Highly anticipated games flop all the time. It's a shame, but even leaving politics aside for a second, no one is obligated to buy a product out of pity for its creators.
Especially since, as we've established, they have already been compensated for the work they have finished. All the sales figures affect is whether or not they get their bonuses and get to go on to create another game. But that was always going to be the case anyway. This is a normal process in the industry. Worst case scenario, they pack up and move on to the next project. No one is going to be permanently unemployed from this.
> But that's also not what's happing here. There's a LOT of harassment being directed at people who aren't boycotting, which isn't cool and just makes the anti-Rowling movement look bad. Getting mad at people because they're not joining in on two-minute hate.
I agree that attacking people over this is wrong, but let's clarify what an attack is.
Doxxing, ad hominem, verbal abuse, etc, yes those are attacks.
Advocating for people to boycott the game, educating people on Rowling's attacks on trans rights or criticizing bad aspects of the franchise itself are not attacks. That is activism, and you are not entitled to be unbothered by activism in the public sphere because that would defeat the entire point.
You can push back against the activism, criticize/critique it, choose to ignore it, etc. I think you raise some valid points, for example. But broadly categorizing it all as mere attacks and harassment sparked by two minute hate is reductive.
DJWGibson t1_j7phwqk wrote
>Sorry, but not matter how you spin it, it was always a possibility the game would flop. Nothing is a safe bet. Therefore, guilting people who choose to boycott the game for ruining the livelihoods of the developers is just inherently silly to me. Highly anticipated games flop all the time. It's a shame, but even leaving politics aside for a second, no one is obligated to buy a product out of pity for its creators.
Which is like arguing something isn't shoplifting to steal from a store because it could have burned down later that night.
The game was an exceedingly safe bet and highly unlikely to flop. The only way it would flop is if the reviews came out and they were terrible. But they're not: it's scoring 8s and 9s on reviews. It has an 86 on Metacritic.
There's no way it should realistically flop.
People are going to lose their jobs and maybe their homes and all you can say is "well, that's a shame."
>Especially since, as we've established, they have already been compensated for the work they have finished. All the sales figures affect is whether or not they get their bonuses and get to go on to create another game. But that was always going to be the case anyway. This is a normal process in the industry. Worst case scenario, they pack up and move on to the next project. No one is going to be permanently unemployed from this.
So your argument is "they were paid yesterday, so it doesn't matter if they're paid tomorrow"?
Is your argument that work shouldn't be guaranteed and people shouldn't feel safe in their jobs? People aren't entitled to work. If they lose their job, they should just go out and get a new one.
How very conservative capitalist of you...
>I agree that attacking people over this is wrong, but let's clarify what an attack is.
Doxxing, ad hominem, verbal abuse, etc, yes those are attacks.
Advocating for people to boycott the game, educating people on Rowling's attacks on trans rights or criticizing bad aspects of the franchise itself are not attacks. That is activism, and you are not entitled to be unbothered by activism in the public sphere because that would defeat the entire point.
Didja read the associated article?
Because they weren't just advocating people educate themselves when the reduced a Twitch streamer playing the game to tears.
The anti-Rowling brigade here is going to actively harm more people than Rowling herself. All to HURT her and make her feel bad by impacting her money... when she already has more than she will ever be able to realistically spend and probably doesn't even look at her month-to-month finances to even know she's taken a loss. She's probably barely even aware the game exists.
She's not going to "learn her lesson" from this and it only hurts people who otherwise agree with the issue of trans rights... so why?
>You can push back against the activism, criticize/critique it, choose to ignore it, etc. I think you raise some valid points, for example. But broadly categorizing it all as mere attacks and harassment sparked by two minute hate is reductive.
I generally refer to being on Twitter as a two-minute hate, because that's what it is. The platform is designed to make you angry and push you to lash out at people. Because the angrier you get, the more you engage. The more you engage, the more time you spend on the platform and the more ads to see. The more ads you see, the more money Twitter makes.
Twitter is incentivized to make people upset and angry and feed empty social outrage as people cancel random people or engage in rapid slacktivism.
And a great example is Rowling. Who was very much against intolerance for her life. She was an advocate for many social issues, especially women's health. Then she made some slightly TERF statements and was attacked and doubled down online. Now her Twitter feed is 2/3rd anti-Trans messages. She's basically been radicalized by Twitter. And the people attacking her haven't changed her mind or made things better, they've only made things WORSE.
Angrily engaging with Rowling online hasn't changed her mind. Calling her out as a TERF hasn't hurt her finances, as she's richer than ever and Harry Potter books are still phenomenal sellers. (All 7 are currently on Audible's most read books of the week and the series boxed set is the #1 children's fantasy book still, with individuals books being #8, #10-12.)
This boycott ONLY hurts the people who made the game.
roscid t1_j7pml5c wrote
I am genuinely not worried about the livelihoods of the people who made the game. Not because I don't care, but because I honestly and genuinely believe that they will be okay. If I really thought that they were at risk of losing their homes, then that might be different, but I really just don't see that happening.
Technology jobs aren't like other jobs; high turnover and frequent job changes are normal. These are not a vulnerable population of workers. Even if the studio collapses, they will not be out of work for long. That's not me being cold, it's just that this is legitimately a non-issue to me and people trying to make a huge deal out of it seem genuinely ridiculous to me.
Being called a conservative capitalist made me chuckle. I actually believe that the government should spend whatever it takes to eliminate destitute poverty. Nobody with the high-demand skills needed to work on a game like this is in any serious, immediate danger of living in poverty, though. And if they are, then the solution isn't to prop up the company that made the game by guilting people into not boycotting the game for activist reasons. The solution is to have a comprehensive social safety net to prevent people from falling into destitution from losing their jobs.
...but all of that is an entirely different and complex conversation, and entirely beside the point.
At the end of the day, nothing can convince me that individual people choosing not to buy a game that supports someone who dehumanizes trans people is morally equivalent to shoplifting or making game creators homeless. I'm sorry, but that is just an absurd equivalency to draw.
> I generally refer to being on Twitter as a two-minute hate, because that's what it is. The platform is designed to make you angry and push you to lash out at people. Because the angrier you get, the more you engage. The more you engage, the more time you spend on the platform and the more ads to see. The more ads you see, the more money Twitter makes.
> Twitter is incentivized to make people upset and angry and feed empty social outrage as people cancel random people or engage in rapid slacktivism.
I agree with your assessment. I don't know what is has to do with anything I've said, though.
I also think you're making Rowling out to be a lot more innocent than she is. Twitter manipulates and exploits our feelings, sure, but to act like Rowling has no agency in this process and just "had no choice" but to become an extreme bigot because angry people on the internet called her out on her bullshit just absolves her of all responsibility for her actions.
She has a huge platform that she could use to spread love and tolerance, but instead she uses it to spite people who rightfully (albeit maybe not always tactfully) hold her accountable for her words and deeds.
I don't feel sorry that people aren't universally celebrating her anymore. Just because it doesn't hurt her finances much doesn't mean it is meaningless. Publicly naming and shaming people who spread hate and say intolerable things helps to strip them of their power and influence. At the very least, she no longer has an underserved squeaky clean image in the public eye. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to the people whose rights and dignity Rowling feels are negotiable.
DJWGibson t1_j7pqd7r wrote
>At the end of the day, nothing can convince me that individual people choosing not to buy a game that supports someone who dehumanizes trans people is morally equivalent to shoplifting or making game creators homeless. I'm sorry, but that is just an absurd equivalency to draw.
But the point I'm making is it doesn't support her. She's supported by a wealth of other revenue streams. She makes a few bucks every time someone reads or listens to one of her best selling books or watches one of her hit movies. And her new detective books continue to sell.
This game would be a tiny, tiny, tiny drop in the bucket that doesn't affect her but affects the people at the game studio who will need to find another job at a video game company... in England. That pays as well as a AAA studio.
>I also think you're making Rowling out to be a lot more innocent than she is. Twitter manipulates and exploits our feelings, sure, but to act like Rowling has no agency in this process and just "had no choice" but to become an extreme bigot because angry people on the internet called her out on her bullshit just absolves her of all responsibility for her actions.
She didn't have agency. No one chooses to be radicalized. She didn't sit down and make a rational decision. This is all primal, reactive lizard brain stuff. She was clearly victimized at some point in her life and this is triggering all those emotions of being attacks and hurt. Fight/ flight is kicking in and she'd going with the former.
Attacking her didn't work then. It's not going to work now. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results is... well, y'know.
>I don't feel sorry that people aren't universally celebrating her anymore. Just because it doesn't hurt her finances much doesn't mean it is meaningless. Publicly naming and shaming people who spread hate and say intolerable things helps to strip them of their power and influence. At the very least, she no longer has an underserved squeaky clean image in the public eye. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to the people whose rights and dignity Rowling feels are negotiable.
And she's being stripped of her power and influence... how?
All this has done has made her double down AND given the TERF community a rallying figure to platform and praise.
I've lost all respect for her. I'm not buying any of her books again. (And I work in an elementary school library.) But I also care about the end results and the actual cause and what we're currently doing... isn't fucking working.
What we're doing now isn't working. It's making her more vocal. She's doing more with her money out of spite. And as she intensifies, so does the mob who are attacking and harming other people.
It's a vicious cycle. And you can win in a vicious cycle. We can't win by out hating her. We can't despise her into submission.
And even if the mob does somehow win and bully her into being silent... is that how we want to win? Emotional violence?
roscid t1_j7ptt9d wrote
> She didn't have agency. No one chooses to be radicalized. She didn't sit down and make a rational decision. This is all primal, reactive lizard brain stuff. She was clearly victimized at some point in her life and this is triggering all those emotions of being attacks and hurt. Fight/ flight is kicking in and she'd going with the former.
If we afford Rowling that level of sympathy, then we must also extent it to the people hurt most by her words. And if we don't extend that same sympathy to them, then Rowling doesn't deserve it either. She can't have it both ways. Either everyone is responsible for their own words and deeds, or no one is.
If Rowling is justified in indulging her base instincts, then she should be prepared to accept the backlash from people doing the same. I think we could all do better, though. I'm all for compassion, let's just not put the onus entirely on one side.
> And she's being stripped of her power and influence... how?
Well...
> I've lost all respect for her. I'm not buying any of her books again. (And I work in an elementary school library.)
Seems to have worked with you and I, at least.
> What we're doing now isn't working. It's making her more vocal. She's doing more with her money out of spite. And as she intensifies, so does the mob who are attacking and harming other people.
> It's a vicious cycle. And you can win in a vicious cycle. We can't win by out hating her. We can't despise her into submission. And even if the mob does somehow win and bully her into being silent... is that how we want to win? Emotional violence?
Again, you make a lot of valid points! This is the discussion we should be having! We should be discussing how to effectively protest someone, not whether or not we should even be doing it at all.
We shouldn't be spending time defending someone who actively works against our common goals, regardless of the specifics of how she gets paid or whether or not she was involuntarily radicalized. We shouldn't be guilted into not boycotting a game to a prop up a fundamentally broken system, and we shouldn't equivocate the act of not buying a video game with destroying livelihoods.
I already stated a few comments back that I condemn the sort of attacks that actively hurt innocent bystanders, so you don't have to keep trying to convince me that that is a bad thing. I already agree with you there. I'm just saying don't conflate peaceful protest with aimless harassment.
By the way, I don't even personally care if someone plays Hogwarts Legacy, especially if they are simply ignorant or misinformed about he surrounding controversy. We all are victims of propaganda, and I am personally more concerned with going after the figureheads who influence a great number of people rather than chasing down their individual followers. I just don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with publicly boycotting the game and spreading the word about JKR's views.
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