The prospect of an open world Harry Potter RPG with custom characters and advancement is understandably very exciting for fans of the franchise. Oddly enough, though, the series' creator, J.K. Rowling, doesn't seem as enthused, and her recent anti-trans comments have sent shockwaves through the community.
Not long ago, J.K. Rowling made some assertions on Twitter which many deemed to be anti-trans. The most recent instance of this was her comments on an article which used the term "people who menstruate" to refer to women that were born that way biologically. The Harry Potter creator took issue with this term, claiming it was demeaning towards women.
Naturally, her comments made many trans people feel the same way she did, demeaned and demoralized. The backlash against her since then has been pretty heavy, and the developers of the Harry Potter RPG are also affected by this, with two in particular claiming it has rattled their workplace.
The two individuals in question are employees at Avalanche Software, the development studio working on the Harry Potter RPG, but asked to remain anonymous to protect their jobs. They claim that the comments made by J.K. Rowling has made many of the employees working on the game very uncomfortable and has sparked conversations among the staff about the issue. Of course, many of the developers are huge fans of the Harry Potter franchise as a whole, and J.K. Rowling is a huge part of the identity of these fans. In the past she was praised for her progressive views, but things are different now.
There are others that feel that Rowling's comments may have a negative impact on the reception of the game itself as well as any other future media set in the Wizarding World. Unfortunately for the game's developers, Harry Potter is and always will be tied directly to Rowling, so ex fans wanting to boycott her work will need to include games and other media as well. This is a shame as what little has been leaked about the game so far looks to be incredible, but there's really no way around it.
What's more, the studio itself is in a rocky place right now, with the Warner Bros. video game publishing business lined up for a potential sale and the Coronavirus pandemic affecting workflow. Only time will tell if the project manages to make it out of these rough waters, but the employees say that the Harry Potter RPG is still on track for its 2021 release.
Source: Bloomberg