Tag Bombing on Steam: Hogwarts Legacy faces wave of protests.
In just under four weeks, one of the most anticipated role-playing games of 2023 will appear: Hogwarts Legacy is already now Top seller on Steam – and is again faced with calls for a boycott. A protest against the open-world game from Avalanche Software has now ignited on Steam. Valve had to intervene.
What happened? In protest against the role-playing game being part of the Wizarding World, the Hogwarts Legacy store page has been plastered with tags made by Steam users. These are usually there to classify a product. In this case, the game is tagged something like “Fantasy, Magic, Action, Open World”.
The wave of boycotts now spilled over onto Steam and the tags contained keywords such as »transphobia« and »transphob«. After Valve intervened and removed them again, users tried again with somewhat subliminal terms like “NSFW”, “Psychological Horror” or “Capitalism”. These were also quickly removed from the Steam site. In the meantime, you can only find the tags there that provide information about the game.
Tags on Steam are supposed to classify the game – and were abused by protesting users.
Why is Hogwarts Legacy boycotted?
The protests are primarily aimed at Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, whose comments on Twitter about trans people have repeatedly sparked controversy. Although the author is not directly involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, as the developers state in their FAQ
What do those affected think about the topic? For GameStar Plus, we’ve already spoken to trans people ourselves and asked them what they think of Hogwarts Legacy – and whether the game can even be enjoyed without remorse:
Hogwarts Legacy
This is what trans people think of the game and JK Rowling
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