Hogwarts Legacy Sells 12 Million Copies During Dispute Over Rowling - The New York Times

The video game generated $850 million in sales in two weeks. Online discussion before its release was largely about the "Harry Potter" creator J.K. Rowling's comments on transgender issues.

The Hogwarts Legacy video game, set a century before the story of Harry Potter, has sold more than 12 million copies in two weeks, Warner Bros. Games said on Thursday.

The early sales figures for the role-playing game, which has generated about $850 million, come amid a revived debate over J.K. Rowling, the author who created the fantasy world and has drawn waves of criticism for her comments on gender identity issues.

Some critics who have called Rowling's positions anti-transgender — a sentiment she denies — called for a boycott of Hogwarts Legacy, which Warner Bros. Games has said she was not involved in creating. The back-and-forth over Rowling's positions grew particularly heated in the gaming community, where members tend to be deeply invested in online controversies and harassment can run rampant.

Although Hogwarts Legacy quickly broke one million concurrent viewers on the streaming site Twitch, some streamers refused to play it, and a few websites devoted to gaming coverage decided not to review it. Others sought to find a middle ground in which they engaged with the game while including caveats about Rowling or pledging to donate to L.G.B.T.Q. organizations. On forums dedicated to Hogwarts Legacy, the topic was front and center, with moderators seeking to tamp down talk about Rowling in favor of the game itself.

Elden Ring, one of last year's most popular role-playing games, sold 12 million copies in roughly two weeks. It sold more than 20 million copies in its first year on the market, its developers announced on Wednesday.

Warner Bros. Games, which has published games in the Batman: Arkham and Mortal Kombat franchises, said it was the company's biggest video game launch.

Joost van Dreunen, a gaming investor, adviser and New York University professor who studies the business of video games, called the sales numbers a "massive success," putting the game in the same league as blockbuster franchises like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

"It is evidence of the appeal of strong intellectual property to mainstream gaming audiences," he said in an email, adding that the longevity of the game was in question because it is a single-player format, most likely leading some players to "burn through the content and move on."

It is not possible to determine whether online opposition to the highly anticipated game has affected its sales. The game has been released for computers, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and Series S and will come to the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch later this year.

The release of Hogwarts Legacy revived discussion of Rowling's views on transgender people, which have been scrutinized since 2018, when she liked a tweet that referred to transgender women as "men in dresses." In 2020, Rowling self-published an essay in which she said a movement of transgender activists was "seeking to erode 'woman' as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators."

Rowling has continued to be vocal on the subject, rallying against Scottish legislation that was intended to make it easier for people to legally change their gender.

Warner Bros. Games and the developer of Hogwarts Legacy, Avalanche Software, have avoided substantially addressing Rowling's comments. After fans concluded that one of the side characters in the video game is transgender, a representative for the developer told the entertainment website IGN, "It has been a high priority throughout the development of Hogwarts Legacy to create a game that is representative and diverse, aligning with our wonderful fan community."