> The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright for a reported $686 million, building on an earlier rights deal. The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works.
I suspect they're hoping netflix will make movies based on his books. Netflix seems pretty sensitive to twitter opinions. They're probably trying to throw a bone to the twitter mob to make it less likely any new movies get "cancelled".
I'm sure they'd rather have less controversy around Dahl's work. And its pretty easy to imagine Dahl's estate making the 'conservative' choice and allowing these edits if there's even a risk of their netflix deal falling apart.
Not only can you make money while ignoring Twitter — but you can make money by ignoring Twitter screeching. Eg, by hiring Johnny Depp rather than engaging in misandry by supporting false accusations against him.
Hopefully, WarnerMedia eventually gets the memo — and stops discriminating against men while supporting abusers like Amber Heard (female) or Ezra Miller (non-binary).
I think a lot of companies have forgotten they need to treat people based on the content of their character rather than race/sex/gender/etc.
If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the outrage over Hogwarts Legacy increased sales of the game. I don’t know if I would have heard about it at all if not for the outrage machine.
Louis CK did a show here in Melbourne a few months ago and the show was sold out. For better or worse, being canceled doesn’t seem like a life sentence.
Do they? They sided with Chappelle. They gave Norm Macdonald a talk show.
I think Netflix does a fairly good job trying to cater to everyone, woke and not.
The thing with hogwarts legacy is that the minorities who are affected are like 1% of the population. Even if 100% of them loudly proclaimed anything anywhere on any social media platform, it would barely affect anything simply because they’re so small compared to the rest of the population. This is in the same sense that only a minority of the population are severely immunocompromised to the point where Covid is still a threat, and the lack of masking and other safety precautions actually makes their lives significantly worse but because they’re so small their voices literally don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
That is to say I don’t attribute the lack of irl effect to social media but due to demographic size. There’s simply no possible way for a minority of such a small size to make any waves happen anywhere, not even on anything as small as a popular video game.
I'm not generally a contrapoints fan, but I really enjoyed the video she made about her experience with this on twitter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8
Or the TED talk "How one tweet can ruin your life" from 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI
We studied To Kill a Mockingbird and The Crucible when I was in highschool. I remember thinking how barbaric and despicable "mob justice" was. I didn't understand it, and I assumed I never would - I thought it was something we reference from history. But twitter really has brought the mob justice style witch hunts back.
I don't understand how anyone can claim its not a real phenomenon. Being cancelled is obviously quite a real experience for the people it happens to.
> There’s simply no possible way for a minority of such a small size to make any waves happen anywhere, not even on anything as small as a popular video game.
There's an old quote - "Never assume a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. Its the only thing that ever has."
The radical left - for all that they're championing the rights of a small group of people, has been very effective at kicking up a fuss about diversity, inclusion and trans rights. It doesn't feel like a tiny fringe movement:
- Apparently most researchers and professors at a lot of universities now need to make "diversity and inclusion statements". Stanford is banning a lot of language. So is Google and other big companies.
- Authors like Roald Dahl are having their work retroactively edited to "meet modern norms".
- The pushback against this stuff is becoming a major rallying call for America's right. Now the american conservatives accomplished most of their big policy objectives in most states (concealed carry, banned abortions, etc). What can they use to "energize the base"? Fighting this stuff is being turned into a tool to get conservatives to the polls. (Source: The economist podcast.)
I'm not sure what the lived experience has become for trans people - but the fight for trans rights (as part of the fight for diversity and inclusion) seems to have made massive waves all over the place.
> The thing with hogwarts legacy is that the minorities who are affected are like 1% of the population.
The only people affected by your decision to buy Hogwarts Legacy are the developers involved. I promise you, JK Rowling won't notice the extra 50 cents in her pocket if you buy, or don't buy the game.
If you want to support trans people, do that by supporting them. The lives of trans people are unaffected by your steam purchasing decisions.
actually, i take that back: most people don't know about j.k. rowling's opinions. and even so over the last couple decades they've become much more aware and accepting of trans people.
Those people banned every single dissenting opinion and after a while started to think that their opinions are way more popular than they actually are.
"Everybody around here thinks that JKR is bad - so surely our boycott is going to be successful - I don't see anyone who disagrees."
If anything - this ridiculous hate campaign against JKR could decrease the support for trans people.
It's a kind of "movie about movie making or movie makers wins Oscar".
I've seen actual physical protests with people on the streets with placards that appear to get less attention from the press. It's incredibly lazy!
It wasn't in the file I have of upcoming games until that happened, so you can definitely also include me. It'll be on Switch later in the year, I'll be waiting for then.
There is not a single person anywhere in the world who is negatively affected by Hogwarts Legacy.
This was done by his estate, as a way to sell more books and/or to get it made as a netflix series. Capitalism drove this decision, not 'wokeness'