Hogwarts Legacy gets great reviews

@MrsTerryPratchett You're entitled to your views but remember they're not the views of all women. You don't speak for women, you speak for yourself.

A proper debate would have shown up the flaws and measures could have been put in place to deals with the obvious problems. But no, Submarine Sturgeon battened down the hatches and pushed it through no debate. Now she's been torpedoed by her own creation and is sinking fast. Has Sturgeon consigned independance and her career to Davey Jones' locker for good? If she had been prepared to debate this wouldn't have happened, but she demonstrated that she couldn't argue the case on merits. I hope the people of Scotland get better than her.

Sturgeon, I believe, fell for the GenderWooWoo because nationalism functions very similarly as IDPOL.
I’m still thinking it through really but Scottish and Welsh nationalism might actually just be functioning as a non-American identity type in the intersectional stack?
The SNP use the Scottish identity to shut down criticism from people who don’t share that identity (eg Westminster!) and to mask their bad policy ideas and their failures to complete projects, just like TRAs do.

‘No debate’ is Sturgeon’s natural position on everything.

While I don't think both sides are as bad as each other (one side is after all not being violently threatening) I do agree that knowing the other side's position and listening to the whys is important.

However, women started in that place. Sympathetic and understanding. It became increasingly clear that nothing but total simpering capitulation was OK. And that was just OK. Once one side wants to salt the earth and hear the lamentation of the women, it behooves us to hold ground.

@NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom Christ on a cracker, it makes the local playground look grown up and civilised. Is there an element of a certain cohort of people being upset at the game's success because they thought everyone would boycott it (after all, everyone agrees with them except those nasty GCs, right?) only to find that wasn't the case?

To be honest I think both sides of this look petulant and silly.

Yes, you've made that point three times now on this thread Most of us have heard the 'both sides are as bad as each other' schtick ad nauseam.

Over on Reddit r/gamingcirclejerk has descended it to what this random person calls a ‘civil war’ over being dicks to those streamers last night.

I shouldn’t be so gleeful at seeing random little prick nobodies be exposed for hypocrisy but I am gleeful and I’m not embarrassed to admit it.

@NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom
Somewhat related question: do you think Elon Musk’s twitter purchase has changed the atmosphere? I think it’ll be a key part of the authoritarian activists losing their grip of influence, although might be a slow and incremental change rather the more instant one free speechers might’ve hoped for.

I hope Elon buying Twitter helps everyone have free speech. It can't be any worse than before. I agree with you that the process will be slow. To me free speech is very important. This concept that there is only one right way to think is incredibly abusive to try and force upon people.
Everyone who likes or supports censorship only ever does so when the people pulling the levers of power agree with them. They never consider what effect that same censorship will have on their lives when the person making the decisions has different ideas. It is a fool's utopia.

There's a reason authoritarians choose the methods of fear, initmidation, and cancellation that they do, they don't have good enough arguments or reasoning that would win in a debate. Hence no debate. Sturgeon is a prime example of this. A cockamamy idea pushed through while ignoring any opposing views. A proper debate would have shown up the flaws and measures could have been put in place to deals with the obvious problems. But no, Submarine Sturgeon battened down the hatches and pushed it through no debate. Now she's been torpedoed by her own creation and is sinking fast. Has Sturgeon consigned independance and her career to Davey Jones' locker for good? If she had been prepared to debate this wouldn't have happened, but she demonstrated that she couldn't argue the case on merits. I hope the people of Scotland get better than her.

I see enough screeching tantrums on here too to be fair.

Both sides as bad as each other, both need to listen more to what the other are saying.

can't wait for this to come out but unfortunately I have a Switch :-(

To be honest I think both sides of this look petulant and silly.

All the smug talk on mumsnet about the success of this game is just as bad.

The idea that the sales of a game that was always going to be a major global success (because it's Harry Potter) somehow demonstrates support in either direction, for or against trans rights, is delusional.

It's Harry Potter and millions of people globally love it - the majority have no idea/ don't give a flying f* about JK Rowling's views on trans issues. They just want to play a game about wizards and magic.

I think it's a bit silly on both sides, those trying to get it cancelled AND those trying to promote for reasons related to JK Rowling's views on trans issues.

Maybe so, but only one side is going to throw massive screeching tantrums about the outcome.

@NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom
It's really hard to understand a thing as big as Gamergate. Every person will see it differently. There will have been some gamers being misogynyistic towards authoritarian woke women in Gamergate. Gamers are a huge group of people, there is good and bad in the mix.

From my point of view the same thing is happening with Gender Critical Feminism being under attack from TRAs. Authoritarian activists forcing an ideology upon an unwilling group of people population with no discussion allowed.

TRAs believe that females should accept whatever trans people want that makes them feel happy with no boundaries. Trans are a higher priority on the progressive stack than women. Many women reject this complete undermining of their already lesser rights. To have less rights and be told to give up rights for men who want them is both infuriating and ludicrous.
The methods the TRAs use to try and achieve this are where I see a parallel to gamergate. TRAs literally don't care how women feel about this, in fact women speaking up against it is just proof to TRAs how awful those gender critical women are. It is this "if someone disagrees with me that's proof they are evil" mentality, while at the same time refusing to even consider why women are so upset that is recognisable from gamergate.

This tactic has been used in several hobbies. Even knitting, yes making things from wool, got invaded and subjugated by the woke authoritarians. One small independant online wool shop involed in an online wool community put together a natural skin tone collection of wools as a package that could be bought. Only the colours weren't inclusive enough of different ethnic skin tones and so the wool shop got a ton of abuse and activists got it cancelled. No one said "ohh cool, can we get more skin tone packages for light and dark brown skin please?", instead the wool shop was evil and had to be removed from the internet. Just an example of how petty and absurd it can get.

I think these activists get a great feeling of power from their activities that they don't get outside of thier online activisim. Imagine being a nobody who creates nothing off the internet, but on the internet you are a powerful warrior who can make companies and people afraid of your wrath. I wonder how much of a buzz these activists get out of their cancellations. Even if it doesn't work, people online are talking about them. Look at the twitter shots in this thread. Who even are those people? But mumsnet is talking about them so they have found an audience.

Gamergate is a done deal now. It's over. Some gamers agree with the activists, most don't. Gamers have stopped caring about it. This HP game controversy is just a tiny flash in the pan for gamers. An irrelevance. The media suffered a LOT as a result of gamergate. If you look at some of those names I mentioned above it's very much a case of where are they now? A lot of media outlets got closed down, mainly due to the businesses failing.
Shout out to the woke Gawker media group though who managed to explode themselves in the most incredibly spectacular way. They outed a rich gay man Peter Thiel out of arrogance for shits and giggles. Thiel bore a grudge over this for years. When Gawker released the Hulk Hogan sex tape, Thiel financed Hogan's 100 million dollar lawsuit against Gawker. During the lawsuit one of the Gawker staff was asked how young someone would have to be for their sex tape not to be fair game for public broadcast by Gawker. The Gawker staffer replied "I dunno. Four?". This did not go down well. Hogan won. Gawker is no more :) Nothing of values or human decency was lost.
Games media are a shadow of themselves. What's left are hanging on by a thread. Alternate media now competes with them and does very well. Just as gender critical women have abandoned the Guardian for KJK on you tube so too did gamers go elsewhere. Just as the Guardian begs you for money every time you visit, games media needs every last penny to survive. They cannot afford to turn down Harry Potter advertising revenue, and must swallow their pride or fold.

I don't half go on sorry :) Will answer your questions in a seperate reply.

I don’t think they realise how quickly they’ve gone from the ‘Right Side of History’ to ‘Rape Culture Hypocrisy’!

The refusal of British game organisations to review the game (and people like that Keza) have their heads in the sand after the Scottish rapist row.

I dunno if it’s due to magic or capitalism but in less than a day, thousands of online social justice activists have been demoted from ‘Power Wielding Purity Police’ to ‘Shrill Hypocritical Fun Sponges’.

And I (as the kids are wont to say) am totally here for it.

Wow, the moral purity is strong with this lot, isn’t it? Their blue hair must be standing on end.

Anyway, I’m not even a gamer - last game I bought was Theme Hospital, so that shows a) my age and b) just how often I buy games - but HL looks awesome. If I can find a way to play it I might have to give it a bash.

Thanks for that @lechiffre55!

Gamergate went over my head at the time, wasn’t on my radar really and the little bit that was didn’t seem relevant to my life. I’m not sure where I would’ve landed, the top level narrative of ‘masses of anti social faceless males bullying a handful of in subculture celeb women’ was a powerful one, but I’m a Gen X punk/metal/grunge antiauthoritarian type who just happens to be trapped in the body of a middleaged mother so I might’ve been suspicious enough of the media to look below the surface.

Piecing gamer gate together years after the event has been challenging and I’ve only been motivated to do so due to the weird KF/MN that has sprung up due to a shared interest in knowing what a loosely connected group of terrible individuals are up to. I absolutely agree that MNetters are akin to the gamers, which on a surface level seems ridiculous… but here we are! 🤡🌎

So is this a sort of footnote to GG, do you think? Is it like a closing chapter of a book set in the future, like when Harry sends his kid off on the Hogwarts Express?

Are the majority of the gaming media now behaving because they know that pulling the on the intersectional stack will make it collapse like jenga bricks all over their advertising income? Is this where the shadowy internet janitors get slapped with the material reality of capitalism, that all the reeeeing on the world internet won’t stop people from buying things when they really, REALLY want them? Is this where they realise their power is mostly just illusionary and no matter how much aggressive Reddit modding they do, there are still only two sexes and only the ones of the sex who don’t game as much can birth babies?

And while I agree with PP who say that millions of people will just enjoy the game and not know anything about any of this, I do think it’s important that parents understand how awful some of the men in tech are, and that children are groomed via video games (ROBLOX!)

At some point most new parents will have their own experience of the gaming world and be far better equipped with the understanding required to keep kids safe, but right now, there is a generation of parents who are cluesless about what goes on on discord or how many utter degenerates are secretly influencing their children hours and hours a day.

And Joshua Moon and Justine Roberts are both modern day heroes for making it possible to even discuss these topics (albeit more politely over here).

Somewhat related question: do you think Elon Musk’s twitter purchase has changed the atmosphere? I think it’ll be a key part of the authoritarian activists losing their grip of influence, although might be a slow and incremental change rather the more instant one free speechers might’ve hoped for

Oh I am celebrating its part in the gender wars.....
The 😱🤬 bullying behaviour of the trans activists is peaking people as far as the eye can see.

Funny how they can't see its backfiring massively.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02xDMXaWNr8bopY8bPcK2r4Wxydb3oDjEMf22hQA4CwkiVEy4TnuajD9VJxNBS7H4Jl&id=146505212039213

We've ordered the deluxe version. I haven't played anything more than Just Dance in years but I'm actually really looks forward to giving it a go.

My DS is as excited as I am. He has a trans "boyfriend" and several other trans pals so I thought his friends might put him off but doesn't seem to be the case.

HL is the most streamed game on twitch atm. So that hasn't worked.

@ReunitedThorns
Although gamergate was a huge shitshow that could fill any sized book, there's some basic elements that are similar to what the geneder critical movement are facing now.
If gamergate can be described in terms of "sides" it would be a chaotic bunch of video gamers of all races and ages versus authoritarian woke activists.
Gamers just want to play video games. Anyone with kids and a console know how much the kids just wanna play on the console. Being online means meeting new people over text and voice chat. This interaction can be friendly or unfriendly. It can encompass the whole range of human interactions that you see in real life, both good and bad including misogyny. Gamers tend to naturally organise into communities. From friendly saints to utter dickbags, gamers have the lot covered.
Woke activists came along looking for spaces to colonise and impose imperial authoritarian colonial woke values. ( most ) Gamers rejected this. A massive shitshow ensued for about 4ish years. It was vicious scorched earth, salt the ground stuff.
On the woke side were the media, just as they are now in the gender critical age, trying to impose their values through force and authoritarian means. One point that makes this really interesting from a mumsnet context is that some of the woke invaders were early TRAs e.g. Brianna Wu.

"It started due to the assumption that reviews were biased based off deals publishers did with the media outlets." - Not quite. Like everyone else gamers take the conflict of interest between a magazine covering a hobby and advertisers money as a given. Not happy but it happens in every hobby. The conflict of interest that riled up the gamers was woke games journos sleeping with woke game devs and then giving their games good reviews. see Zoe Quinn.
The woke game journos then openly turned against their own audience gamers.
Leigh Alexander ( a Gamasutra game journalist ) - "'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over." Leigh Alexander Twitter - "These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers." and so games journalists went to war with their own audience, gamers.

TRAs seem a logical progression of the woke journalists given that there was early TRA activisim on that side. The fact the media supports the woke authoritarian TRAs now as they did during gamergate is a direct continuation of the same role.
Gamers have mostly gone back to playing video games. Possibly some will have become incels and transmaxxers. Gamers include those with less developed social skills. Less females game than males, and it can lead to a much less complicated care free gaming life for a female gamer if she doesn't disclose that she is female. Male gamers can turn to all sorts of wierd places to try and meet their relationship needs. Incel, transmax, furries, LARPing and as a female online, some sort of wierd being a kwai loli ( Japanese animae influences ) cute femboy. I don't even know if the femboys class themselves as trans it gets that complicated. Also half of them are just pretending for shits and giggles because they are bored. Never underestimate the ability of online gamers to say stupid stuff just because they are bored, trying to get attention, or trying to shock. Take everything with a grain of salt.

The TRAs blaming capitalism for the game's success are missing the point. The game is successful because it's a good game and people want to buy and play good games.
I think a gaming website refusing to review it just looks petulant although it's easy for people to find reviews elsewhere. If I want to play a game I often don't read reviews as many of them have spoilers.

If the TRAs hated the popularity of Hogwarts Legacy before it launched, they are really really going to hate how big it is going to be.

It's not big because of anybody's views on trans issues (for or against). It's big because it's Harry Potter.

Anybody feeling passionately about it either way because of feelings about trans issues is a bit shortsighted tbh. The vast majority of the millions buying this game do not have this anywhere on their radar. They just like Harry Potter.

I think it's a bit silly on both sides, those trying to get it cancelled AND those trying to promote for reasons related to JK Rowling's views on trans issues.

This game was always going to be successful, because it's Harry Potter, a huge global phenomenon.

The fact that it is successful and will sell millions of copies says absolutely nothing about either side of the trans debate. What is says is that a lot of people like Harry Potter and this is a well-made game.

These debates will influence about 0.0000000001% of people buying or not buying it. Absolutely a waste of time.

This is interesting. I've long thought JKR will seek to avoid taking legal action for slander or libel because of unintended outcomes. She can't be seen to crush a nobody, the likely outcome of that would be that person becoming canonised as the most victimised person ever and then massive copycat behaviour of the original slander/libel all across the Internet. I think she's probably been advised only to go after slam-dunk cases by organisations that are substantial enough to put up a fight and where the damage to JKR would be particularly harmful.

A lot of people are getting carried away with their slanders and libels as they're looking to out do those made by others to stand out above the baying mob and they're edging closer and closer to the line where JKR might be advised to act. Particularly because it is crystal clear that they are seeking to cause economic damage as well as reputational damage.