Prominent online gaming forum ResetEra has banned the discussion of Portkey Games’ upcoming adventure RPG Hogwarts Legacy after internal discussions among the mod team.
The decision was made by forum moderators after an ongoing internal discussion returned to Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s awful views toward transgender people. It seems ResetEra, like a lot of gaming communities around the world, needed an answer to the question of how to cover the game responsibly. Moderator discussions culminated in a message from general manager B-Dubs announcing the policy changes. Under the new rules, the mods are expanding an existing ban on promoting Hogwarts Legacy to include discussions of the game itself.
After continued internal discussion, we began to start outlining the issues put forth by Rowling and the game in question and each time, and as we discussed it all, we kept coming back to the simple fact that Rowling is not only a bigot but is actively pushing, in her position as a wealthy and famous individual, for legislation that will hurt trans people. That she uses the influence and money gained from her success with Harry Potter to push transphobic legislation.
Therefore, the mod team has decided to expand our prior ban on promotion for the Hogwarts game to include the game itself. There will be no OT and no discussion of this game.
As a reminder, we do not allow for advocating or metacommentary on content ban decisions, which are decided by the mod team. Any that we see, whether for or against, will be met with threadbans at a minimum.
This is a big move for a forum the size of Resetera, one the site’s management hasn’t made lightly. The upside is that users appear to have taken the news reasonably well. There are no obvious examples of users bombarding other threads in complaint. No spam campaigns rapidly posting new threads on the game to give the mods a hard time. An unexpected result, given the amount of back-and-forth online certainly, but nice to see.
In the meantime, Twitter will, of course, remain the platform of choice for rancid Hogwarts Legacy discussion.
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