I swear to god I hope this is the last thing I have to say about this because I am so fucking sick of this Wizard Game Bullshit
People aren't mad that IGN reviewed the game. It may look like that but only if you're only giving a cursory glance. People are mad because there's a whole-ass disclaimer about JKR in the review while the review body itself glosses over her involvement entirely. People are mad because IGN went "it's our duty as critics to ignore the social aspects of what's going on" when that's literally the opposite of what a critic should do. People are mad because the review talks about how the game is kinda a fuckin' hot mess that would get a 7/10 even by modern review standards but gets a 9/10 because Harry Potter.
People aren't mad because that other person reviewed the game, they're mad because she kept making excuses and said shit like "boycott the game, not the people playing it." But the thing is, it has been months of this goddamn motherfucking discourse with plenty of people saying, quite fuckin' justifiably "hey, if you put your desire for entertainment over your respect for trans people, we're going to have less respect for you." And you know what? No fucking shit!
People aren't mad just because people are streaming the game, they're mad because the streamers and people around them are making excuses like "oh but the game is doing Big Numbers so I/they have to stream it!" or "it's okay we're basically doing free promo for this game because we're also donating to charity" like they're selling their goddamn indulgences! It's so painfully fucking transparent and things that people were talking about in the weeks leading up to the release!
People aren't just mad that, after all this time, people are still buying the game either! They're mad because of the constant, pathetic handwringing, the constant attempts to justify themselves, the mewling pleas of "please see me as a good ally," and it's all so motherfucking obvious what they're doing.
The thing about making excuses is that everyone can see when you're doing it. The worse thing about making excuses is that if you have to do it, you already know you've done something wrong or are planning to. This is what's pissing people off. It's the months and months of real actual goddamn people who are constantly dealing with the increasing transphobia in the public sphere going "please don't fucking do this thing" followed by people going "I'm sorry, I'm an ally to your cause, but I absolutely need to give the virulent terf money for the wizard game, money she has explicitly said she wants to put towards her views."
There's a reason people are mad, there's a reason people are angry at more than just the studio and JKR herself, and it's called complicity.
