This time - just for a change - it’s in an article about Baldur's Gate 3, Lego Fortnite, and 7 other games that defined 2023. Now, even if you’re not a gamer, the game you’d expect to see namechecked is Hogwarts Legacy - as the article grudgingly admits, once you reach the section on said game,^ it was the highest-selling physical game in both the US & the UK this year.
The article refers to Rowling as being “kept at arms' length from this project” - that’s simply untrue. Had she wished to be involved she’d have been all up in that game’s narrative. Rowling choosing not to personally oversee the gaming side of things means that Hogwarts Mystery uses US English not UK English (& Magic Awakened does so too, but mercifully to a far lesser degree) but if she she took it into her head to get involved, involved she would be, as evidenced by the forthcoming TV adaptation of the Potter books. (Why am I not surprised by the BBC struggling with the concept of a woman having agency?)
On top of that they’ve:
• implied Rowling is transphobic rather than an advocate for women’s rights
• talked about streamers refusing to review it (but not mentioned the ones who were mercilessly harassed for doing so)
• mentioned the boycott, but not the behaviour that went alongside it
• given imbalanced slant/weighting of reviews
• not mentioned TRAs abused the trans voice actor
And while it was a short piece they managed to repeat their bit about “nobody wanted to review or play it because JKR is a big transphobe” so they had space to write something, oh, what’s the word, accurate? 🙄
Absolutely stunk of desperation not to include the game & to try to downplay its success (no mention of it breaking records on Twitch, for example). You’d hope this many months on reviewers & journalists might have done some reflecting on this Atlantic article & the implications thereof; but certainly not in this case.
^it’s seventh & I don’t think that’s because in the Potterverse seven is a powerfully magical number