- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
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It’s honestly amazing how well this game sold considering how mid the gameplay actually is. Having a popular IP really helped.
My wife, whose entire history with video games is Sims 3, Animal Crossing: NH, and Pokémon Go, played through this game start to finish and loved it. It wasn’t really made for “gamers”, it was made for Harry Potter fans that wanted to play a Hogwarts game. It didn’t succeed as a gaming revolution, it succeeded in bringing non-gamers to buy it.
Personally, I love that she got into it whether it’s mid or not, because it introduced her to a lot of the mechanics necessary to play “real” games in the future. And she had a lot of fun.
I’m both a gamer and HP fan.
I thought the game was great, and I didn’t really realize the depths of people’s distaste for it, I guess.
Was it crazy revolutionary? No, but it was fun.
Fellow HP fan, I was kinda weirded out by the whole “free access to unforgivable curses” and “canonically killing people” and the honestly kinda disheartening stance on goblin personhood but man flying around the grounds is so fun
Oh yeah me too. There are a lot of moments in the writing that make me go “wait… what? are you sure about that?” and some of the game design was iffy here and there but the main attraction is just the fact that they’ve given us a “full-scale” Hogwarts and surroundings.
Eh, people don’t buy for the gameplay mechanics most of the time, they buy for what they see in the trailers and read in the descriptions. Being the only videogame available for this IP, having the WB marketing juggernaut behind it, releasing at a time of the year without much competition, coming out on every single platform - it would have been weird if this game wasn’t the best selling one in 2023.
Exactly. You don’t know what the gameplay is until after you buy the game, unless you are savvy and watch reviews or something, which hardly any consumers do.
Are you saying that marketing works?!
I thought the gameplay was awesome. To me, a really impressive entry to a potential series. What did you feel were the weak points in the gameplay?
I found the combat to be serviceable, and at some points I had fun with it. But it kind of got repetitive really quick. Like once you learn the core mechanics, they didn’t really introduce a lot after that to keep you on your toes. But the main problem I had with the game came from the quests, they just felt so monotonous. I love exploring the castle, but finding every little collectible just felt tedious and didn’t really seem to have any payoff.
All things I hope can be improved with an eventual sequel, I’m definitely glad I picked up the game. But it’s not something I’ve ever considered revisiting once I beat it.
Just seen they’ve uploaded this pretty funny video 😂: https://youtu.be/gwyHqXMSkAw?si=7REw4Cgj2lEpbAc0
What can you say gamers love anti-Semitism.
I’m playing this game right now and it’s honestly a six out of 10. The only reason to launch the game at all is because of the world design which is top notch. So top notch it scores all of those six points, because the plot characters story and gameplay are all a let down otherwise. This is the type of game that will disable the controls for your magical flying broom and then tell you that you need to climb a wall. I wish it wasn’t so successful so they didn’t think this formula was so good, because if they made the game actually good AND a Harry Potter property, that would have really been something special. But as it is now, it’s just an uninspired video game painted in a pretty coat of a popular franchise. I’m sure we’ll get a sequel.
I would have loved to have this game as a kid. It may be a 6 out of 10 but most of the other harry potter shovelware they shit out when the movies were coming was at best a 0.2 out of 10. The only arguably not that bad one was the prisoner of azkaban movie based game.
IDK. Most of the early games were actually pretty entertaining. I fairly recently played sorcerer’s stone on the gbc, and it was still pretty fantastic.
I’m curious, what open world games do you rate as a 9 or 10? I’m not saying Hogwarts did anything revolutionary, but it did most things pretty solidly. It’s been a while since Ive played an open world game that does a good job on making the world actually feel alive.
Not the person you asked, but for me personally to rate some open world games:
- Hogwarts: 4-5/10. It’s pretty damn bad IMO, beyond the fan pandering.
- Avatar Frontiers of Pandora: 5-7/10, it’s a slightly worse Far Cry (which is already damn tepid) but looks insanely pretty which makes it a good braindead time waster.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Originally 2/10, laughably underdesigned and so buggy it felt like industry-criticizing sarcasm. Nowadays 7/10 if including the expansion, still quite buggy but not in a bad way, and the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun. City still too dead and underdesigned, sadly.
- Skyrim: 6-7/10, damn impressive at the time, but only briefly as the game was shallow as all hell, even in its best moments. Still impressive but it’s all on the mods and hence the players, not the game designers.
- Witcher 3: 8-9/10, essentially same design flaws as modern CP2077, but given its fantasy world suffers much less from it, of course the empty countryside is, well, empty.
- Subnautica: 10/10, amazing horror vibes, good progression, not too open and not too confined, focus on exploration.
- Outer Wilds: 10/10, completely open and pure exploration, reductive game design done perfectly right.
I got Subnautica for free twice (PlayStation and Epic), I should really look at giving it a proper try. I have the feeling it’d be really good in VR, played No Man’s Sky in VR recently and I immediately loved it while on flatscreen it didn’t click with me as much.
Subnautica is a masterpiece.
I wonder it’s because it attracted a bunch of people who weren’t into games, but are huge Harry Potter fans.
It’s also on every platform, including the Switch, while TotK is just on the Switch.
I think you just nailed it, this is exactly why.
Yeah this feels like a Look What They Have to Do (release on every system) to Mimic a Fraction of Our Power (be Zelda) meme.
Honestly it was just a good game. I saw it attracting both Potterheads and non-Potterheads. (I would not consider myself a Potterhead).
Does it have a bunch of replay value? Not really (neither do a lot of games). But man, that initial playthrough was just really good. It also looks like I clocked 113 hours on the game, so that’s a pretty decent return to me.
Also, despite the source material and the author, it had a lot of very inclusive elements, which were a nice touch.
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.
I’m shocked the online outrage from gamingcirlclejerk didn’t work
It’s like the sub made for taking the piss out of gaming criticism and critique did what it was supposed to do.
Not really, they were often really serious about it which made it all the more ridiculous. Sometimes it’s a fun circlejerk sub, sometimes it’s presenting their slacktivism almost as being some gaming vanguard and fighting a war against the game.
It was pretty funny.
Hasnt Nintendo like, not released digital sales for TotK? I remember reading that recently.
Not a cope post, I don’t care if you play the terf game, just actually curious.
The terf game?
The owner of the Three Broomsticks is trans… ?
When the series creator is vocally advocating to marginalize transgender people and financially supporting other members of the hate movement, it takes more than a token NPC to make up for it.
Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros, but some trans people also pointed out that naming her Miss Ryan was probably done in bad faith. If anything, sounds exactly like the kind of tasteless thoughtless naming that JKR is infamous for.
Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros,
There was a lot of that shoehorned in that made me wonder if it would’ve made sense in 1800s wizarding world.
don’t care
That’s not what “TERF” means.
Theyre trying to argue that JKR being a massive TERF is fine because theres one trans character in the game. The “I cant be racist, I have a black friend” defense.
The “I can’t be racist, my book has a black guy AND an Asian woman!” defense too. Just don’t think too hard about what they’re named lol
I don’t care for JK. But JK didn’t make the game. Hundreds of designers, artists and programmers did. And you think those people should be boycotted because one person is a TERF.
She collected royalties from it. It doesnt matter if she had any input or not. Buying that game results in some of that money going into her pocket and I dont want to give her a dime. If she didnt get a dime for it that might be different but as it is she does and she revels in the shit stirring that shes done that resulted in blow back. I cant justify giving that troll the satisfaction of buying products that benefit her financially.
Those people were already paid, and you can make a game about wizards and magic without licensing the Harry Potter IP and further enriching JK Rowling.
Thank god tokenism is here to save the day again.
Very curious. I played for about 10-15 hours and was just bored, but I’ve never been a huge potter head. Glad people like it though
Millions of people have bad taste. Shocker
Smug gamer thinks what others like is wrong. Shocker.
No smugness here, just disappointment.
Why does it matter to you what others play?
Financially supporting a crusade against a minority group (trans folks) is one of my pet peeves
So. You’re saying the developer and everyone that worked on the game are part of a crusade against a minority group?
Or is it just that you’re delusional enough to think that because the creator or the IP is a blowhard hag of a human being, everyone associated with her IP should be thoroughly punished?
Nah thats not what im saying. But the millions raked in by harry potter enterprises goes in to Rowlings pockets. Also, i dont weep for the devs, they were paid already…
So? People like the game. They’ll play it. It’s not for you to decide what they spend their money on.
She gets paid or not. Shouldn’t matter to you. Maybe find something to occupy your time better.
Supporting transphobes is wrong. Millions of people supported a transphobe. For me, that’s not being smug, it’s being terrified
The developer and people that worked on the game aren’t transphobes. Get a new bit.
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.
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.
Anecdotally, everyone I’ve talked to about it doesn’t care. They don’t like she’s a TERF and some even condemn her for it, but every single person I’ve talked to separates the world of Harry Potter from her. It basically has a life of its own and they couldn’t care less about JKR now, that’s what I’ve been able to surmise of people’s view of it now. It’s like having racist parents but not being labeled as one because you’re a separate entity.
I’m a big gamer, and was a massive HP fan. I did not buy the game, or even consider it, specifically because of JKR’s bullshit.
I may be in the minority, but I guarantee I’m not the only one in this boat. So now you’ve talked to someone who cares, if you count this as talking.
And just to say a little more, no I didn’t crusade against the game, nor do I villainize people who bought it and enjoyed it. I do think it’s possible to enjoy art without liking the artist. Hell, my favorite book series of all time is the Ender’s Game series, and Orson Scott Card is probably just as bad as JKR, though maybe not quite as famous/public about it.
But I can’t bring myself to buy it. I’m trans, and her rhetoric, and how public it is, has been specifically harmful to me, directly. But that’s just me. I won’t tell other people how to live their lives or enjoy their free time, so long as they’re not actively hurting others. And no, I don’t consider buying a game where one person who is profiting from it might spend a sliver of that profit on anti-trans BS to be actively harming others, especially when she already has enough money to do whatever the hell she wants anyways.
This doesn’t make a dent, and ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible anyways. I just hope that some portion of people who bought the game heard about the protests and maybe donated a fraction of what they paid for the game to some pro-LGBTQ groups. I have to believe there’s at least a handful of people like that. I do believe that people are mostly good, and want to do good.
Yeesh, I wrote a lot more than I planned to here. I’ll stop now lol.
Death of the author only applies if she’s dead.
So unless there’s been some good news in the last day, those people are just coping
(Thought experiment time) So at what point, if ever, does a universe separate from its creator? Think about Star Wars. There have been a large number of derivative works by multiple authors. However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise? At what point are the two separated, if ever?
However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise?
Yes. I would immediately lose ibr interest in Star Wars and go do something else. There’s plenty of entertainment out there that’s not made by shitty bigots.
Star Wars is an awkward example because it’s already pretty well tainted itself with mediocre films.
But yes, unironically I would actively stop looking for the shreds of good among the carnage that is the once-beloved franchise if I knew its creator, whose name is still tied to it and who financially benefits at least from the propagation of successful entries under that IP, would be just a little bit more able to get their awful views out there thanks to that success.
This happens a lot more than you think. It isn’t just coping.
How many movies were produced by Weinstein? How many comics were published by bigots that still re-sell in droves today?
How many celebrated tv shows were made by pieces of garbage?
Wrestlemania season is here. THAT company is completely vile from the ground up.
Sometimes, people just pick and choose their fiction and legitimately separate the artist from the art. The Harry Potter franchise has outgrown it’s original author, just like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, WWE or almost any franchise.
If you think the world truly is so black and white, you haven’t gone out and experienced enough of it.
Thats not death of the author, thats you covering your eyes while handing them money.
Death of the author does not exist while the author makes money off the product.
If you pirated the hogwarts game? Then you have room to speak on death of the author. But jkr has a hefty royalties deal on hp products. If you paid for it, the author is living well.
Im sorry you apparently cant face that truth, but that doesnt change it.
Lol I said the same thing a bit ago and was down voted for it.
I mean, I didn’t consider playing it because I’ve never been a fan of Harry Potter, but Rowling’s ramblings definitely didn’t do anything to change my mind.
I was a moderately engaged HP fan before I learned what a colossally awful human the author is, but her TERF ramblings also made me realize there’s quite a lot of racial and ethnic stereotypes baked into the franchise. It’s probably the fastest I’ve ever totally abandoned an interest in a series. Even if we do separate the works from the author like so many fanbois suggest, they’re still awful.
Doesn’t seem to have had a big impact I’d say
You csn say all you like, we literally have zero idea how many lost sales they had.
We know it didn’t prevent it from becoming the year’s most sold game, so whatever the impact it’s pretty easy to shrug off
Buddy, its the worlds 5 largest IP, id be shocked if it didnt sell millions of copies regardless.
For all we know it could have lost out on 20 million sales, but its an untrackable metric.
I mean I’m sure it’s a lot more cheerful for the to imagine the number as really high, but the fact of the matter is that in the end it still sold really well, becoming the top seller of that year.
A bit of a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ situation
Its nothing to do with cheerful, its to do with not knowing how effective a boycott was.
No one in their right mind would expect it to sell zero copies.
Tell me, how do you tell if a boycott was successful?
Echo… Echo… echo…
Bigot…Bigot…bigot…
Why, because they point out that the entire thing was a lound minority running in their own echochamber?
Sure call me a bigot. The point I was making is this is an echo chamber issue for people who want to eat others because they are not pure enough. And on that you come out swing with the same incessive echo put stuff I was pointing to.
No matter how much you hurt the people you say you are fighting for. Go ahead, run your inquisition on people to see if they match your purity standards, don’t be surprised if one day you end up in front of the inquisition yourself accused of being impure.
You spend time fighting with someone who might disagree with you in this fringe of society but still takes on the biggest fights out there… and you would rather burn them than focus on better, easier, more impactful targets.
And how’s your moral compass?
You didn’t play Harry Potter, but are you a vegan? You know animals have feelings right?
Have you volunteered this week? You have time to bullshit with randoms on lemmy, why not use the time to make the world better?
What other games do you play, do you like Blizzard games?
Maybe you have an Xbox, you know what Bill Gates is up to right?
Do you use Amazon? Ever heard of their CEO?
I can go on and on and on. Get over yourself.
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.
Or just don’t care that much
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.
Fuck. Off.
deleted by creator
I’m out of the loop on this whole thing because JK is a writer and doesn’t know anything about gender.
Can you specifically quote something she has said to prove your claim or is it really hearsay like the guy above claims?
Thats just one example. There are many others but I feel like if the point isn’t made it never will be.
She makes a number of claims about transitioning and detransitioning that are straight up lies, tries to conflate trans women with predators that must be denied entry to womens’ bathrooms, claims that the change in societal views toward trans issues threatens to erase women etc.
The reality is that JKR seems to have never dealt with the trauma of her rape and abuse so she denigrates trans women as being little more than predatory men in skirts. Thats why she brings that up in her post. She’s explaining why she is so concerned with trans issues and those reasons go back to that trauma never being processed in a healthier way.
I read that today already, it is a lot milder than “wanting trans people to disappear”. Where are all the hateful tweets I have heard about?
Edit: nothing? Anyone?
I hadn’t read this before, and I am honestly shocked that this is the what the uproar is over. This isn’t a call to action to hurt anyone. It is basically a statement that there is a difference between a transwoman and a woman, that distinction needs to be made, and this is mainly due to society rushing to a solution without due diligence. This is not 1/100th of what it has been made out to be. If this is all it takes for someone to never want to associate with someone else, then I don’t think he should associate with anyone. Everyone is going to differ from your opinion on one topic or another, you can’t escape it.
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.
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.
If you are WB, I can’t see how you compare the performance of this game vs the performance of Suicide Squad (which had similar development time) and not rethink your approach to future licensed titles
🤮
Has anyone played both? Im loving zelda at the moment and wouldn’t mind moving onto this next
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 think any game holding your attention for 30 hours has done something right, surely?
Eh I dunno, I got bored of it before I finished the story or explored the other half of the map. Feels like a bit of a failing there. 30 hours would be fine if it was a fully contained experience.
Zelda is the better game. Problem is (sales wise) the Zelda franchise isn’t nearly as popular outside of gaming circles, and access to this game is locked to those that own a Switch, whereas HL is on all platforms
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.
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.
Zelda has tighter gameplay and holds your attention longer.
HL is decent.
I pirated the game. The first part in the actual school was really fun. But once you get out into the world, you quickly realise that it’s just another generic open world game with outposts, collectibles, and general busywork that you’ve seen in every other open world game. It got boring very quickly for me and I never finished it.
If you have nothing else to play and want a simple open world game set in and around Hogwarts, it’s perfectly servicable as long as you pirate it. Don’t expect to be blown away by it though.
Completed both 100% and they’re such great fun games.
Hogwarts was awesome to walk through the wizardry world. Battling wizards, poachers, spiders, etc. Finding all the secrets and going through the story. Finished the game in a week, I just couldn’t put the controller down.
Zelda was more fun though
Genuinely curious which game has more “Hours Played”. I’m willing to put money down on it being Zelda.
