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.