Protesting the success of Hogwarts Legacy and its association with author J. K. Rowling's opinions on transgender individuals, gamers have raised almost £10,000 for the charity Mermaids.
There will be a few of you reading this that aren't aware of why Hogwarts Legacy has been barraged with all of these controversies. Several years ago, Rowling started publicly criticising transgender people and this has led to members of the original cast of the Harry Potter films to distance themselves from her. Avalanche Software was also pressing the fact that Rowling hasn't been directly involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy. However, she will profit from the sales, and the game has been a huge success for Warner Bros. so far.
Here's what it's like to fly a broom across the school grounds in Hogwarts Legacy:
In order to offset that, Yogscast streamer Bobawitch started a Tiltify campaign where gamers could donate the price of the game to Mermaids. Mermaids is a charity that supports gender nonconforming and transgender children in the United Kingdom, and in the past, it wrote an open letter to Rowling saying how her views endanger transgender individuals.
At the time of writing, over £9,600 has been raised from fans who have donated whatever they can to the charity. "Playing Oblivion instead, Todd Howard could never. Also it has a better wizard school anyway," said one. Obviously, the campaign has split the room, with a proportion of fans praising Bobawitch for the idea and others arguing that this undermines those who worked on the game. Irrespective of whichever side of the fence you fall on, a massive amount of money has gone to a children's charity, which is a heartwarming outcome.
Topics: Hogwarts Legacy, Harry Potter