Other prominent game creators broadcast Hogwarts Legacy unrestricted. The player known as Asmongold told his 3.4 million followers on Twitch that streamers should “instantly ban…anyone else who complains from playing the game.” Felix Lengyel, known to his 11.6 million followers as xQcHe said: “People finance all kinds of evil with their everyday purchases in ways far worse than you can imagine.”
Beth, who describes herself as a “trans rights enjoyer” in her Twitter bio and broadcasts as pickle_bee on Twitch to 200 followers, he disagrees with such views. “Rowling has painfully changed the way many view the franchise,” said Beth, who did not provide her full name. “She loved the universe, but now, unfortunately, I can’t separate that from how Rowling wants to disenfranchise me and my brothers.” Beth, like a few others online, has been tweeting spoilers for the end of Hogwarts Legacy.
Others have taken more serious action. Sam Gibbs, an audio engineer for the Yogscast gaming collective, created a website that checked if a creator had streamed Hogwarts Legacy. Just one day after the site went viral on Twitter, it was taken down. (Gibbs did not respond to a request for comment.)
Some streamers are boycotting Twitch entirely, feeling that even having ads for Hogwarts Legacy shown on your stream is too much. “The trans community specifically is forced to deal with so much hate that forcing us to consume ads for a transphobic franchise is cruel,” said Veronica Ripley, a Twitch streamer who goes by the name Nikatine and is currently leading the boycott of the platform. . BuzzFeed News. “I think it says a lot about a person’s convictions if their alliance ends up in a video game.”
Molly Mae, a cosplayer and Twitch streamer with 8,800 followers, is not participating in the boycott. Instead, she is organizing a charity event on twitch to raise money for Mind Out, an LGBTQ+ community mental health service. “Twitch has a large community of cis, straight creators who seem to champion their own nostalgia, selfish desires, and unwavering loyalty to a game that has meaning to them,” Mae told BuzzFeed News. “I just think trans lives are more important than playing any game.”
The protest appears to be having some effect. brother hassanTwitch’s top political commentator, said on the stream that the only reason he’s not streaming the game is that “it’s not worth getting harassed and called transphobic endlessly.”
Ultimately though, many streamers just want to be able to play Hogwarts Legacy and acknowledge their love for the franchise. “Consuming a product created by the hands and minds of hundreds of people does not mean that you share the bigoted views of one of the creators.” ArielJadeLive, a cosplayer and streamer with nearly 17,000 followers, told BuzzFeed News. “Playing Hogwarts Legacy does No make you transphobic or even a fan of JK Rowling. It makes you a fan of magic or Harry Potter, or just a gamer.”
As for Kay, she said she’s “all for people making a lot of noise on this issue.” He added: “It’s important to fight for change in the things you believe in. A lot of great strides in what’s acceptable in society come from people taking a stand: gay rights, women’s rights, and racial equality. I think that the reason people are boycotting the game is more important to society than the literal boycott of the game.”
