LogFAQs > #971413846

MacArrowny posted...

It's similar with movies in general, too. There are a lot of campaigns out there to boycott Scientologist and anti-vax stars, but most of them don't go that well (Top Gun Maverick earned over $700M in the US alone), since people prize entertainment over ethics.

I'd say it's less that and more they value Entertainment over ethics regarding more abstract concepts. Especially when the end result is minimal change.

Let's say people boycotted Top Gun Maverick. Nobody watched it, and it lost millions of dollars. What does that do to scientology? What does that do to the anti-vax movement?

On that note, I feel like a lot of people saying "This game looks bad anyway!" are undermining the boycott because if the game looks bad, of course nobody's going to buy it. And it would then fail because of the devs, and not because of Rowling. I get that they're probably trying to convince people "You don't really need this!" but I feel like people are going to judge that for themselves rather than listening to a stranger's opinion on the internet. The message should be "Don't buy this game, because it enables Rowling's transphobia against us."

But I also feel like it's not going to work specifically because its goals are a bit abstract, without any real ultimate change in mind. It's why most people went about watching the World Cup even though it was hosted in the human rights disaster that was Qatar. A lot of people don't care much about sending a message.

That's not to say I think people should buy this game. I think people have to consider the ethical considerations for themselves, and decide if that's what they want to do. I just think this sort of boycott, especially around an already established franchise as big as Harry Potter, isn't going to work when its goals are more abstract.