No, Warner Bros, I WILL NOT Be Buying Quidditch Champions. Here’s Why…

Before we get too deep into this, I’d like to start this article by asking readers to check out Trans Lifeline, an organization that provides support to and offers a hotline for trans people seeking support.

Now For Something Completely Different

At the tender age of 7 the Wizarding World of Harry Potter became a place of comfort, refuge, and safety for me. A place I could escape to when other kids were mean, or when I was bored, or lonely, or just tired of hearing bad news all the time.

And so, in 2018 when Hogwarts Legacy was announced I was - cautiously hopeful. But the last few Harry Potter video games were…well…they were trash, weren’t they? Everything after Prisoner of Azkaban fell into a realm of uncanny animations, stiff controls, and puzzles that felt more like afterthoughts.

No way was this game going to be any good.

Surprise, Kid. Your Childhood Hero Is A Bigot!

Considering how often I read the books, it’s amazing I’d never caught it before. After all, this author loved nothing more than using physical characteristics to dehumanize those deemed villainous or “unnatural”. And yet - nostalgia’s a hell of a drug.

If you’re looking for more information about the controversy and you have an hour and a half to kill, I highly recommend ContraPoints video on the subject. It was made shortly after the controversy and does an excellent job of explaining why and how JK Rowling was outing herself as being a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist.

Even after educating myself on the subject, I felt bad for the Hogwarts Legacy Dev Team who dedicated years of their life to creating a game that would, inevitably, add to this awful woman’s considerable fortune.

No way was this game going to be any good.

Let’s Talk About Ethics

My unease with the franchise as a whole still sits within my gut, every time I engage with it. A cognitive dissonance rears its ugly head. The game devs didn’t know JK Rowling was going to turn out to be such an awful person. Did they deserve to be punished for her actions? What about the voice actors of the game? The environmental artists? The writers?

And then of course, that selfish voice in the back of my head whispered “what about me?”

I’d been waiting for this game since I was 8 years old - and here I was - at 29, eyes watering as I fought between wanting to live a childhood dream and fighting off tremendous guilt.

And then someone bought it for me - essentially deciding that me experiencing a few hundred hours of joy was worth whatever ethical backlash they or I might receive.

So, I removed myself from the internet, and hid away in my apartment - to explore Hogwarts in HD. And you know what?

The game was pretty good.

Not Baldur's Gate III good or FromSoft good - but it was fun. And funny. And silly.

The dev team had clearly done their best to separate themselves from the author in their approach to its development. The inclusion of Sirona Ryan, a trans character, was a nice touch, though I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a “screw you” to Rowling or a desperate plea for acceptance.

But, the controversy aside - a lot of love went into this game. I get the feeling they were forced to stop before they were done - and that some decisions would have been different if left to the developers alone.

For example the decision to exclude…

No Quidditch. And We All Know Why

“Quidditch has been canceled this year due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding last year’s season.”

Running around the world of Hogwarts Legacy, you discover letters and overhear conversations of characters expressing their feelings about the lack of quidditch - despite the clear love that was put into the flying mechanics. There were people saying they could kill the headmaster for the decision, that it was a foolish decision - I could go on.

Again, I found myself wondering if this was the Dev’s team's way of saying “Screw You, Executives!” Writing their own frustrations and disappointment into the actual game script. It may be that they recognition of not providing an in-world reason would only add insult to injury, and that players might be more empathetic to hearing their own complaints voiced within the world.

Still…it was an odd decision, right? Or at least that’s what I thought.

And then the announcement was made. On June 7th, 2024 - it became clear that a different Harry Potter game came into development - and rather than include Quidditch Gameplay (which the game files suggest was already in development), they removed it entirely so that there could be no choice for players but to purchase this Quidditch World Cup knockoff in September of 2024.

“Hey Drake, They’re Not Slow”

This is where big game studios continuously underestimate their players.

You see, that person didn’t purchase Hogwarts Legacy for me because it was something “Harry Potterish” and they knew I loved the franchise.

I had been closely watching the development of Hogwarts Legacy since its announcement in 2018. There were a lot of small clues suggesting that those working closest on the game had a real love for the world they were bringing to life - and as more and more footage surfaced I realized that there was potential here (no matter how many times I tried to convince myself it wouldn’t be any good).

I cannot say the same for Quidditch Champions.

In fact, until the announcement in June, I’d heard only whispers of this game. And even then I thought “this feels like a cash-grab, right?”

But then I saw footage, changes to the game of Quidditch itself, (catching the snitch does not end the game) - I saw aspects of the game that weren’t exciting to me - such as the inclusion of a Beauxbaton Quidditch stadium and a character maker.

Combined with the blocky cartoony graphics I just…couldn’t be bothered.

This looks like a game you’d buy for 5 bucks on your phone, not for $30-40 on your PS5.

Nostalgia isn’t enough to sell a video game, especially not when you’re fighting the kind of ethical minefields that come with an author who’s literally being sued for her stupid and hateful commentary.

The game needs to seem like it’ll be good, ya’ll. But Quidditch Champions just doesn’t…

Where We Go From Here

JK Rowling has only doubled down on her transphobia - even amidst a cyber harassment lawsuit from an Algerian Olympic boxer whom she labeled a “man” despite the boxer in question, Khelif, being assigned female at birth.

Despite her insanity, due to its tremendous financial success, there will, no doubt, be a sequel to Hogwarts Legacy. And considering how intense Rowling’s vitriol has become, I’m certain there will be considerable backlash against it, too. This time, the dev team won’t be able to say they didn’t know that she was a Bigot. The cat is out of the bag.

And, with the introduction of Quidditch Champions, Warner Brothers has already proven that it’s more than willing to treat this world as a money-making spell. And there have already been rumors that the Hogwarts Legacy sequel will be a live-service game. Which only ads to the my skepticism toward all future Wizarding World projects.

Either way, no Warner Bros, I’m not buying Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions.

I might take out my PS2 and play some Quidditch World Cup, though.