In an attempt at an inclusive wizarding world in the gaming
universe, the “Harry Potter"-themed video game, “Hogwarts Legacy,” will
allow players to create transgender characters depending on how they customize
their character’s voice, body type and gender placement in the school’s fabled
dormitories, according to a Bloomberg report published Tuesday.
Although this level of customization has grown more common
in video games and is no longer unusual, it’s noteworthy for Hogwarts Legacy.
Last summer Rowling made several comments that were widely viewed as demeaning
toward transgender people and denounced by many, including Harry Potter film
stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
The comments also rattled some people working on the game,
Bloomberg reported. As a result, some members of the Hogwarts Legacy
development team have fought to make the game as inclusive as possible, pushing
for the character customization and even for a transgender character to be
added.
There was resistance from management at first, the people
familiar with the project said, but currently the character customization is
included in the game. A Warner Bros. spokesperson declined to comment.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is a unit of AT&T
Inc. and houses titles like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Mortal Kombat 1.
The unit had attracted interest from several major companies last year and
could have reaped $4 billion, according to a report from CNBC last June.
But AT&T balked given the business’s growth potential,
Bloomberg reported, and pulled the unit from a list of potential asset sales.
Harry Potter is one of the most lucrative franchises in entertainment. The film
series is the third-highest grossing of all time, with $7.7 billion in revenue,
while Rowling has sold more than half a billion books, more than any individual
author in history.
Last month, Hogwarts Legacy faced more controversy after
gaming journalist Liam Robertson revealed that Troy Leavitt, a senior producer
at Salt Lake City-based Avalanche, made dozens of YouTube videos attacking
feminism and “social justice.”
He also expressed support for Gamergate, a loose community
of gamers who harass journalists and game developers for voicing progressive
views. ResetEra, one of the largest video game forums, enacted “a total ban on
threads for promotional media” around Hogwarts Legacy in the wake of that
discovery and Rowling’s comments. Leavitt didn’t respond to a request for
comment.
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