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Lesson from Hogwarts Legacy: Being woke and pandering gets you nowhere, a game sells well only because it is a good game

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All publishers and devs should take the freaking notes.

Nearly 700k concurrent players on Steam, #1 single player game on Twitch. You want commercial success? All you need is just to deliver a fun and well made game! That's what the overwhelming majority player base want, a fun game. Make them happy, your shits will sell like crazy.

As for the rest tiny bit fraction of the woke mobs and journalists? Look at the pathetic boycott failing and degenerating into a straight up harassment campaign, those fuckers are just hateful losers with a loud mouth. They can't dictate what people can enjoy what they can not, they are just powerless.

By pandering I mean soullessly altering the game's settings and writings only to awkwardly fit a narrative. I am on board for diversity and different perspectives if it is organically integrated into the game design and story in the first place, like the Left Behind DLC and Marcus in Watch Dogs2, they are all awesome, not to mention how emotional I got for Lee's story in the Walking Dead.

Being woke only for the sake of virtual signaling gets you nowhere, and it poisons the gaming industry and culture. Leave that echo chamber, and put effort on how to make a fun game.
 

FunkMiller

Member
The key thing is that whatever the media, you have to make the effort to make it good… whether you’re woke or not. Far too many people in the entertainment industry at the moment think you can just inject politics into a project, and collect the rewards. Doesn’t work like that. Never has.

Make the story/character/ gameplay good first, then put whatever message you feel is important into it. That’s the way to do it. Sadly, that takes a lot of effort, and a lot of people in entertainment are pretty lazy, not all that talented, and therefore can’t inject a message into a project in an effective manner.

As for Hogwart’s Legacy, well, a small minority are discovering that their voice is not as loud as they think it is. Hopefully you’d think that’d inject a little humility into the debate, which would bring about more positive outcomes, but I think we all know that’s not going to happen.
 
The key thing is that whatever the media, you have to make the effort to make it good… whether you’re woke or not. Far too many people in the entertainment industry at the moment think you can just inject politics into a project, and collect the rewards. Doesn’t work like that. Never has.

Make the story/character/ gameplay good first, then put whatever message you feel is important into it. That’s the way to do it. Sadly, that takes a lot of effort, and a lot of people in entertainment are pretty lazy, not all that talented, and therefore can’t inject a message into a project in an effective manner.

As for Hogwart’s Legacy, well, a small minority are discovering that their voice is not as loud as they think it is. Hopefully you’d think that’d inject a little humility into the debate, which would bring about more positive outcomes, but I think we all know that’s not going to happen.
Totally agree, Brokeback Mountain is one of my favorite movies.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
All this woke shit and pandering etc only exists online and on twitter and is mainly an American thing, in the real world nobody gives a shit about dangerhairs or cares about their feelings, people love Harry Potter, people agree with JK Rowling and if anything when this shit does occasionally cross into the mainstream it does their movement more harm than good as it's almost always negative.

These cunts where never gonna make a difference to a behemoth like Harry Potter especially considering the game is actually pretty great
 
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I wonder how this would have gone down in, say, 2013, when wokeness was edgy and to a certain degree anti-establishment.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
I'm not sure what the truth is about the inclusion of the trans character, and it may well be the case that it was a late addition to virtue signal or at least appease a particular crowd. But overall, the OP's point is right. A good game stands on its merits as a game. It's success is largely thanks to the IP finally having a modern game every wants to play, but everyone wouldn't want to play it if it wasn't getting great reviews (from everyone not called Wired).
 
All this woke shit and pandering etc only exists online and on twitter and is mainly an American thing, in the real world nobody gives a shit about dangerhairs or cares about their feelings, people love Harry Potter, people agree with JK Rowling and if anything when this shit does occasionally cross into the mainstream it's does their movement more harm than good as it's almost always negative.

These cunts where never gonna make a difference to a behemoth like Harry Potter especially considering the game is actually pretty great
It ain’t just American, boyo. European leadership is in thrall to America and is desperate to bring wokeness to their respective countries.

I am currently looking at job postings in England and if you search in London or Manchester the job descriptions are just astonishing - like 2018 America.
 
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Its not a great example because Hogwarts as a whole didnt feature diverse characters in the first place. Kind of hard to add social commentary when the world is so imaginative, that most problems can be solved with a potion or spell.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
And then there is forspoken. Devs made a game where you control black lady and every single character and villain in power is also a lady. Men are either stupid or die.

… And nobody noticed lol
 
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All this woke shit and pandering etc only exists online and on twitter and is mainly an American thing, in the real world nobody gives a shit about dangerhairs or cares about their feelings, people love Harry Potter, people agree with JK Rowling and if anything when this shit does occasionally cross into the mainstream it's does their movement more harm than good as it's almost always negative.

These cunts where never gonna make a difference to a behemoth like Harry Potter especially considering the game is actually pretty great
Well said! I freaking hate that condescending altitude that the American's problems are ones and only problems for the world.

*to license one of the most commercially succesful media IPs of all time
Lol that's true, but still, the game is reviewed well and overwhelmingly positive on steam, good quality definitely helps sell more.
 
Yeah maybe we should stop being so scared to upset these people. The fact is they will always find something to be offended over. They are not wanting to bring any positive changes to the world. Best to just ignore them.
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It may help, but looking at Avengers losing Squeenix around 100 million USD, it is clearly not a panacea.
HP fans are on a different level of fandom. They bought those mediocre PS2 and Windows CD-ROM games. I’ve only ever seen Marvel fans have that level of dedication for Spider-Man.
 
Yeah maybe we should stop being so scared to upset these people. The fact is they will always find something to be offended over. They are not wanting to bring any positive changes to the world. Best to just ignore them.
Yeah exactly, I still don't get why people making games still don't get it. You put a black female as the main protagonist and a heroine type to save a world, they still complain that the first court scene is a stereotype to black people and they are not happy with it. After all, they are not buying your games anyway! Just realize they are not your target audience and ignore them and move on!
 
Ironically there is a trans character in the game that literally has no purpose but to be "woke and pandering". So how does OP even make sense lol

The most hilarious thing about this game is watching the reactions from a neutral perspective.
It exactly proves my point: pandering gets you nowhere. The dev put the character to cater the specific community but did it work? Absolutely not, they still bash the game everywhere as the transphobe game.
 

hrab

Member
Ironically there is a trans character in the game that literally has no purpose but to be "woke and pandering". So how does OP even make sense lol

The most hilarious thing about this game is watching the reactions from a neutral perspective.
Exactly, the game itself is pretty woke, and they definitely wanted to please that crowd. If anything it shows that you can never please them, no matter how much you try. And also that people that are not much into woke way of doing this and do not like the story characters being designed around "meeting diversity quota" can still buy and enjoy the game, while those angry screamers will sabotage it even if you try really hard to cater to them.
 
Ironically there is a trans character in the game that literally has no purpose but to be "woke and pandering". So how does OP even make sense lol

The most hilarious thing about this game is watching the reactions from a neutral perspective.
Exactly, and you can also create a trans character and choose both voice, gender etc regardless of your appearance.

If that isn't woke, I don't know what is. I don't get how so many overlook this.

Anyway, the game is brilliant.
 

Stare-Bear

Banned
It’s weird how this game has been selected as THE thing that JK Rowling is gonna make so much money off.

They never question the Lego sets, or Universal Studios Theme Park. Why this game?

And if you want to boycott products owned by billionaire transphobes, close your Twitter account.
 
It’s weird how this game has been selected as THE thing that JK Rowling is gonna make so much money off.

They never question the Lego sets, or Universal Studios Theme Park. Why this game?

And if you want to boycott products owned by billionaire transphobes, close your Twitter account.
LMAO, maybe Lego and theme park tickets are too much above their finance capability so they never heard of it?
 

FunkMiller

Member
It’s weird how this game has been selected as THE thing that JK Rowling is gonna make so much money off.

They never question the Lego sets, or Universal Studios Theme Park. Why this game?

And if you want to boycott products owned by billionaire transphobes, close your Twitter account.

It's not really. The gaming community has been captured by the ideology more than any other. Gaming can be a solitary experience that tends to attract socially awkward, disenfranchised, and anxious. All prime candidates to be indoctrinated.
 
thats not true at all. IP, brands, and established franchises sell more

this Hogwarts game would not have sold even half the units it did if it wasn't using the Harry Potter IP
That's not what I meant tho, lol, I was saying a licensed game would sell more if it is a good one. There are big IP games that flopped due to shallow quality as folks mentioned in previous post.
 

DAHGAMING

Member
Another couple of things to add is these woke lunatics are a small minority and most people couldnt give a fuck about there extremist views, if in this case the product is good and something the majority want to consume they fucking well will do so with 0 fucks given to the blue hair brigade.

The other thing is simply people just dont know about the so called controversy around the game, people just want to live there life, do there shitty job, go to school ect and now and then escape into a game, which should be and normaly is just an inocent way to switch off and relax for a while, but these cunts are trying to rob others of that.

I raise a glass to Hogwarts Legacy and its succsess, and hope for years to come of content and sequals.
 

SCB3

Member
It’s the HP brand. If Fantastic Beasts caught on with audiences as much as HP did, we would have had a fun HD Pokémon-esque game with wizards already.
I wish they'd had gone with the original idea of Fantastic beasts, it was supposed to be 5 Seperate Stories set in the Wizarding World (Think like Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Beats, a goblin one, and a couple of others) with no overarching story

Also, as the saying goes, "Go Woke, Go broke" I've yet to see a case where pandering to a certain crowd has worked at all for any media
 

ckaneo

Member
It exactly proves my point: pandering gets you nowhere. The dev put the character to cater the specific community but did it work? Absolutely not, they still bash the game everywhere as the transphobe game.
No, you are talking in circles. You literally say "By pandering I mean soullessly altering the game's settings and writings only to awkwardly fit a narrative."

The game literally does that all over. They purposely opened up the gender control to become one of the most (the most?) inclusive we've seen in gaming. They added a trans character to the franchise that didnt have one before.

And hilariously enough the game takes place in 1890s and there is racial diversity everywhere you look. Far more than was present in the JK Rowlings writings and far more than would make sense in the setting.

And here you are praising it for not being everything that it is. That's the problem with people like you who stuck in the same terminally online culture war as the people you hate. You both no longer see things clearly. Imagine the reaction to all the things I said about the game if the JK Rowling stuff was removed from the equation. Yall would be screeching as you always do.

The same people bitching about the trash wired review that gave the game a 1 are giving it a 10 or high scores for opposite reasons.
 
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NikuNashi

Member
As somebody mentioned in another thread (I don't know because I don't frequent insane asylums) there is only 6k members on ERA. Think about that for a minute. Current 700k concurrent players on Steam for Hogwarts, why would you cater to 6k.
 

ckaneo

Member
As somebody mentioned in another thread (I don't know because I don't frequent insane asylums) there is only 6k members on ERA. Think about that for a minute. Current 700k concurrent players on Steam for Hogwarts, why would you cater to 6k.
The game does cater to that crowd though...

The only thing that doesnt is the creator of the IP
 
Even if you get some success by leveraging wokeness (e.g., 10/10s for TLOU2, HZD:FW and GoW, despite having significantly worse narratives and marginal improvements (if any) compared to their predecessors), it is only temporary. The IP is damaged in the long-term and the market eventually corrects itself.
If you're insinuating that GOW, TLOU, or Horizon have been damaged I'm going to have to disagree with you big time. People tried to claim TLOU2 ruined that IP but both the second game and the first continue to sell gangbusters and are only going to continue to get bigger and bigger
 
No, you are talking in circles. You literally say "By pandering I mean soullessly altering the game's settings and writings only to awkwardly fit a narrative."

The game literally does that all over. They purposely opened up the gender control to become one of the most (the most?) inclusive we've seen in gaming. They added a trans character to the franchise that didnt have one before.

And hilariously enough the game takes place in 1890s and there is racial diversity everywhere you look. Far more than was present in the JK Rowlings writings and far more than would make sense in the setting.

And here you are praising it for not being everything that it is. That's the problem with people like you who stuck in the same terminally online culture war as the people you hate. You both no longer see things clearly. Imagine the reaction to all the things I said about the game if the JK Rowling stuff was removed from the equation. Yall would be screeching as you always do.

The same people bitching about the trash wired review that gave the game a 1 are giving it a 10 or high scores for opposite reasons.
Hey mate, easy, you are extrapolating too much.

Yes I said what pandering is, but why you are ignoring my point "pandering gets nowhere"?

I never deny the game added elements to please the specific community, but the point is that it didn't work. The game adding woke elements did not help them get a better image for the woke people. It didn't work so they should take notes and drop that crap in the future.

Nevertheless the game itself is fun and people are genuinely enjoying it, that's why it's commercially successful. It does not contradict any of my points.

Also, be kind and do not label me as what you feel like is convenient to argue. I am just a normal sane gamer, wanting to have more good games from the industry, that's it.
 

Tomi

Member
I think Ubisoft and specally ea needs to talk to them how to make a good game because most games lately are complete disasters
 
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The game literally does that all over. They purposely opened up the gender control to become one of the most (the most?) inclusive we've seen in gaming. They added a trans character to the franchise that didnt have one before.

And hilariously enough the game takes place in 1890s and there is racial diversity everywhere you look. Far more than was present in the JK Rowlings writings and far more than would make sense in the setting.
I think it's absolutely hilarious that the same people who previously called games woke trash for simply featuring women with muscles or short hair are now willing to overlook all of the stuff you mentioned because the overarching drama around JKR forces them to side with her and defend the game no matter what.
 
As somebody mentioned in another thread (I don't know because I don't frequent insane asylums) there is only 6k members on ERA. Think about that for a minute. Current 700k concurrent players on Steam for Hogwarts, why would you cater to 6k.

More like 60k. Then add onto that the unregistered people that read the forum.
 
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I’ve seen hours of gameplay now and this game is indeed very well made, but it’s popularity is due to the license.

One of the first quests is following some dude to a town and if you stray a few meters of the path you get that lovely red lettered warning to return to the mission or else!

Open world and total freedom my arse.
 
I’ve seen hours of gameplay now and this game is indeed very well made, but it’s popularity is due to the license.

One of the first quests is following some dude to a town and if you stray a few meters of the path you get that lovely red lettered warning to return to the mission or else!

Open world and total freedom my arse.
Interesting, I have some friends actually praised the pace for this as they think the first couple hours were very dense in introducing various contents and well paced; they disked the way Forspoken throw you quickly into the big barren open world with limited abilities and info.

I guess to each their own.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
This could be the watershed moment where it actually clicks for a lof of them. The people doing the most harm to 'their' community is themselves. Actually, these people are doing the most damage to a community they are trying to supplant and claim to be part of is more accurate:
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kyussman

Member
I don't disagree with you OP but the woke mind virus is a hell of a thing.....when these people get infected it seems it's really hard for them to shake it.West coast of the US is the epicentre of the virus and it's also where a lot of games get made so it's not going to get better any time soon.
 

EDMIX

Member
Nearly 700k concurrent players on Steam, #1 single player game on Twitch. You want commercial success? All you need is just to deliver a fun and well made game!

lol

I'm loving the game right now, but just stop with this shit of pretending those Twitch views are based on solely the game alone.


Strong doubt on that.

People in this very site have literally made statements about them not even caring about the Harry Potter IP and talking in those threads about the controversy, so one has to believe that is the same thing that is happening regarding Twitch. In regards to its sales, its a great game from what I'm playing, but stop trying to force this narrative that its getting great sales based on

Being woke only for the sake of virtual signaling gets you nowhere, and it poisons the gaming industry and culture. Leave that echo chamber, and put effort on how to make a fun game.

As if THAT is the reason why its selling lol Before folks even found out about that whole controversy, they where already fucking trying to start their hate bandwagon call this game "woke" and it was many people in this site that had to tell them it wasn't....so what the fuck does that even tell you about this whole thing?

This literally is the very game many of you would be making those "woke" statements about....yet because of those JK comments, suddenly all of that is now being ignored and its not "woke"? lol Yea...I don't know about all that folks, I think many of you would have been fucking making those claims about this game being "woke" if it wasn't for those comments that JK has been making and the sides that are going at it regarding this title.

I just don't fucking believe that many of you without knowing all that shit going on, where going to say this wasn't "woke" and for fuck sakes, some of you called Forspoken woke. So if you remove those JK comments, you guys would have just attacked this game with they very same claims that were made about other titles.

So I'm not saying you've made this claim, merely that if you can understand the diversity in this game not being some secret agenda, extend that belief to other titles too as from where I sit, many on here would have just called this game "woke" like the rest of the stuff they've had conspiracies about.

Folks literally made a big deal about being able to pick from a girl or boy in an Assassins Creed RPG, as if that was new thing in RPGs...so lets not pretend that wasn't some thing that people where claiming, if we can understand this, lets extend that idea to titles literally just doing exactly what this is doing lol Its not that hard. I don't think this game is magically doing anything different regarding that. Merely that there is no sexy narrative to argue about "woke" this or that. Literally NOTHING can happen different with the core idea about this game and lets say JK is saying the opposite....are you sure this is what you are saying about Hogwarts Legacy then?

Johnny Concrete Johnny Concrete nah, I'd say its based on being well made. The Harry Potter IP has been used for decades in gaming, like Spiderman it take the right team with great quality to get this type of traction, so I can't just pretend its the IP alone in this one.
 

PeteBull

Member
Biology prevailed after all, wokism failed like it always does, to not look far: reboot of one of my beloved franchises- Saints Row beign woke af with characters straight from fortnite, or- Gotham Knights, where game looks worse from 2015 realesed Arkham Knight played on og ps4, 1,8tf gpu and tablet jaguar cpu machine .
 
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