I guess all the twitter drama around the author matters less to the real world. It’s impressive to see how a vocal minority can completely distort what is happening offline.
It happens every time. Pokémon Sword/Shield and Scarlett/Violet had the biggest launch in the franchise’s history despite being (justifiably so) heavily criticized by pretty much everyone online.
People shit on microtransactions and always-online games but the top charts always show online multiplayer games are among the most played.
It doesn’t make the criticisms any less valid; it just means that the general public is usually ignorant of them.
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.
You csn say all you like, we literally have zero idea how many lost sales they had.
The game has a minor character who is trans too. It uses the world she invented but does not borrow her real world views
Just because a minority is depicted in a work of art does not mean that depiction was made in good faith. Americans are familiar with that concept because of our dark history of minstrel shows and blackface performances.
When the trans woman character’s name is Sirona Ryan, it calls into question whether she is meant to be a character or a caricature.
I think that the masses are mostly disengaged with terminally-online type discourse. The only reason I knew JK Rowling was TERF was because of reading it on here, so if you are only on social media to follow your old high school classmates on facebook, you’d probably never find out
The masses are largely disengaged with LGBT rights in general, but the declining rights of transgender people in the UK (and the US) shows this is not just a “terminally-online” kind of issue. She is not the only one responsible, of course, but her outspoken antagonism towards transgender people is influencing people.
It concerns me when people can’t differentiate “this issue does not affect me” from “this issue does not exist”. Even calling matters “terminally-online” in general is a bit questionable when whole ass presidents get elected by meme campaigns these days.
JKR is a very vocal TERF that basically wants trans people to dissappear. A lot of people dont want to financially support her because of that. That most people seemingly either dont care about trans erasure or even worse, bought the game specifically because theyre the type to do shit just because people with a conscience told them they shouldn’t, says more about most people than it does that “vocal minority”
Oh pipe down, I read the entire thing when it was recent and in no way does she want what you claim. She has an open letter on her own website outlining her views.
Over the course of the years since this happened it has grown, morphed and people are now probably also saying she would be the one herding the trans people into the gas Chambers.
This right here is why Lemmy is often a shitshow. You’re absolutely right, but since you’re going against the hive mind it’s nothing but downvotes. No one’s even bothered to reply because there’s nothing to argue against in good faith. Just angry downvotes because your facts are getting in the way of fake outrage.
It’s multi-platform, uses one of the biggest IPs of an entire generation and seems to do it quite well too. Everything else would have been more surprising to me.
It’s like the sub made for taking the piss out of gaming criticism and critique did what it was supposed to do.
I used to love that sub, but these days they are only focused on the outrage culture. Nothing inherently wrong with that, I like to laugh at people who take their video game waifu too seriously. I initially joined that sub because it seemed like the best place to have level-headed conversations about overhyped games, like the Witcher 3. Everywhere else seems to love that game as if it’s the second coming of Jesus, but if you find some places that didn’t like the game, they swing a bit too hard on the opposite site, so you can’t have a conversation with them either. I found plenty of people in that sub who loved that game, but knew where the shortcomings were.
It worked. I stopped being friends with everyone who still likes Harry Potter these days, and now I’m safer from transphobes.
Would you have otherwise been friends with transphobes or Harry Potter fans? What about the boycott changed stuff?
Has anyone played both? Im loving zelda at the moment and wouldn’t mind moving onto this next
I have. Hogwarts Legacy has really good graphics but it’s honestly pretty generic, it only sold so well because there are millions of harry potter fans out there.
Hogwarts is fun for about 30 hours roleplaying as a wizard, as a casual potter fan. I got really bored of it after that and never finished the game. At its core it really is very generic, it’s really propped up by the IP. That’s not to say it’s bad by any means but its not got the depth of Zelda.
I think the biggest issue for me was how large the map was. They did the castle and hogsmede very well, but then threw in a bunch of filler content in the other towns. If they had stuck to the more core areas only, the game wouldn’t have gotten so stale later on.
That’s because they needed somewhere for you to fly your broomstick since it was the most fun part of the game.
I’m kinda curious in what way Zelda (assuming TOTK) has more depth. Combat wise HP has stealth, an attack typing system, comboing, special moves, and more if I recall correctly. TOTK does have a variety of weapons and you can craft weapons, but it generally boils down to just whacking away at things. You could also mention the ability to make vehicles/automaton, but the time to build things (until you find ultra hand?) mixed with limited resources made that more of a pain/chore than fun.
I could go into other mechanics, but ultimately I think TOTK would be rated worse if it wasn’t for the Zelda branding carrying it.
You aren’t wrong, there was an unpopular opinion thread some weeks ago and several zelda fans called both BOTW and TOTK just ubisoft open worlds with a zelda skin. They are both carried by their IP (even though I love these 2 zeldas), the worst Zelda (Skyward Sword) still sold 4.15 million units, just counting the HD version, the Wii version sold 3.67 million.
I played both. Both are excellent games, and both also have flaws.
I think Zelda was by far the better game - HL isn’t really on the same level as it at all, design-wise, story-wise, or or in terms of things to do.
HL’s strength is definitely the world itself - the Hogwarts and Hogsmeade areas in particular are both incredibly well done and very faithful to the source material. The other areas are just alright.
I’d say HL’s weaknesses become most apparent if you’re a completionist. Things can get very repetitive if you’re going for 100%. I did, and I honestly think you’ll like it a lot more if you just don’t.
It’s still lots of fun though. Zelda was my most played game in 2023 and HL was kind of far behind, and everything else combined would still probably be a distant third.
I absolutely agree with the other people saying HL is generic and propped up by the IP. But for me that was enough.
The story of HL is also one of its weaknesses. It’s a generic chosen one story with unmemorable characters.
I’m really confused by all of the story comments in this thread. It’s fair to criticise HL’s story, but at least there is a story and characters. What story does TOTK even have? What characters have more than a line or two? While Zelda has never been big on complex narratives, at least previous entries (before BOTW and TOTK) could develop a story since they could have a linear progression. A couple of flashback scenes really doesn’t tell a great or compelling narrative and really disconnects the gameplay from the events going on.
Oh no, but what about the boycott…
When has a boycott ever worked? For the most part people don’t have principals unless their very livelihoods are directly threatened.
What about it? None of us are surprised that people chose a childhood memory over respect for trans people as human beings.
What a ridiculous take. First of, outside of certain parts of the internet most people aren’t even aware of the issues surrounding Rowling, secondly you can very much acknowledge that she’s a terrible excuse for a human being while still enjoying a game she had nothing to do with (yes, she gets royalties, but she has the kind of fuck you money that multiplies by merely existing anyway).
Your profile has “Nazis can fuck off”, but you’re here calling out people who have issues with Rowling, a bigot who stans Nazis like Kellie-Jay Keen
It’s genuinely amazing to me how some people are obsessed with the idea that buying a videogame based on the works of an author that wasn’t even involved in making the project makes you transphobic.
Would it shock you that 99% of corporate officials are bad people? I guess we should stop buying anything ever because some percentage of money can go to people I don’t like.
She’s literally said that people buying her shit proves she’s right.
I’m sorry people have some more morals with their money and have trouble giving it to people who have made it their entire focus to shit on them and be called rapists and groomers by their former childhood heroes.
Tons of people worked on the game who aren’t bigots. Artists, programmers, designers etc. Buying the game supports them, too.
Also, someone decided to make the owner of the Three Broomsticks trans.
Embarrassing.
