One of the largest forums about video games ResetEra has banned advertising on its website Hogwarts Legacy, a new game based on “Harry Potter”. The reason for this is the scandalous statements of J. K. Rowling and a leading designer who supports gamergate.
Over the weekend, one of the ResetEra users drew attention to an insider’s tweet by Liam Robertson. It told that the chief designer of the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy, Troy Leavitt, at one time released dubious videos on YouTube.
According to Robertson, Leavitt “shot anti-feminist and pro-Gamergate videos.” For example, some of them were called “Anita’s Assignment” and “Gamergate developer’s Thoughts”. All this led to a lively discussion on the forum.
As a result, two days ago, the ResetEra admin under the nickname Hecht introduced a complete ban on all advertising materials related to Hogwarts Legacy on the forum. This means that neither the trailer of the game, nor official announcements, nor threads on the topic will appear on the site. The only exception is discussions that will radically change the point of view on the situation.
The incident was also noticed by journalist Jason Schreier, who wrote about it on Twitter yesterday.
ResetEra, one of the largest video game forums, is enacting "a total ban on threads for promotional media" from the new Harry Potter game in the wake of JK Rowling's transphobic views and the recent discovery that one of the game's lead designers is a pro-Gamergate YouTuber pic.twitter.com/D5Wpoi4WpM
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) February 24, 2021
Hogwarts Legacy is an upcoming RPG scheduled for release in 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Avalanche Software is developing the title. Note that this is not the first time the game has been at the center of a scandal. Last summer, Rowling wrote a series of comments about transgender people that some found offensive. After which Warner Bros. I even had to make a statement that the writer “is not directly involved in the creation of the game.”