Despite Calls For Boycott, 'Hogwarts Legacy' Breaks Twitch's Concurrent Viewers Record
We're still two days away from Hogwarts Legacy being available to the general public (save for preorder early access), and while the game has already become a hotbed of controversy, it now owns the title of "record breaker" as well.
Yesterday, over 1.2 million people were watching streamers play early-access versions of the game, breaking Twitch's record for most concurrent viewers of a single-player game.
The record stands in stark contrast to some of the public's outspoken opinion surrounding the game, as many have called for it to be boycotted due to its association with J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series accused of being a TERF.
Boycott calls have led some gaming outlets to take dramatically different approaches in covering the AAA title, caused gaming discussion hubs to ban or limit discussion of the game and even reportedly led to the harassment of Twitch streamers in recent days.
There's no qualitative data explaining why Hogwarts Legacy drew so much interest ahead of Friday's release, but there are many potential explanations. It's possible the controversy may have drawn eyeballs to the new title. Despite the political ruckus brewing around Hogwarts Legacy, it has been reviewed very well overall, leaving some Harry Potter fans and gamers with an ethical position against J.K. Rowling in a moral quandary.
It could also be that such people tuned in to see if the game would be worth purchasing despite their misgivings about Rowling. Others contended that the boycott calls merely amounted to free marketing, inspiring much more curiosity about Hogwarts Legacy than there would've been otherwise.
Whatever the case, it seems that Hogwarts Legacy is primed to be a financial success, boycott be damned, which portends badly for the discourse surrounding the game.
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Gumshoe
I don't really think this "boycott" will result in an increase in actual sales (because actually buying the game is kind of expensive and most people don't want to actually part with that much money just to make a statement that nobody will really even hear), but it's easy to see why it would result in an increase of Twitch streams. There are probably lots of people who will want to watch people play it on Twitch just because they're expecting some kind of drama to occur over it and they want to be watching when it happens.
Sumarios
>which portends badly for the discourse surrounding the game
I disagree, maybe it will demonstrate that unstable histrionic narcissists who think the world is out to get them are actually a tiny minority and not worth listening too. Hopefully more people (and devs, writers, etc.) will start tuning them out.
lecorbak
Maybe it'll make people stop trying to force boycotting over stupid reasons and make free advertising over the things they hate.
Peanut970
A great way to make people watch something is to spend a lot of time telling them that they aren't allowed to watch it, then make it really easy for them to do it.
Sumarios
No kidding, shouting "Playing this game makes you a bad person!" is the 2023 equivalent of the parental warning label on rap/metal CDs. When the whiny moral busybodies say it's bad they only succeed in making it into counter-culture.
Geigh Science
Facts. "This thing makes me feel bad, therefore YOU aren't allowed to have anything to do with it" is an incredibly flimsy argument at best.
DeadSpark
I mean, it's just like Cyberpunk. There's no such thing as bad publicity when you're big enough.
charli36
Yeah, but at least cyberpunk looked good aside from the constant game breaking bugs.