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The world’s largest charity speedrunning occasion, Video games Completed Fast (opens in new tab) (GDQ), has banned speedruns of Hogwarts Legacy and different Harry Potter video games in the latest iteration of its speedrun submission information (opens in new tab). A brand new part of the information itemizing “Disallowed video games”—which did not exist on the web page as not too long ago as January 6, per the Wayback Machine (opens in new tab)—explicitly forbids runners from submitting Harry Potter recreation speedruns to the bi-annual charity occasion.
GDQ does not clarify why, precisely, Hogwarts Legacy and different Harry Potter video games have been banned from future GDQ occasions, nevertheless it’s troublesome to see it as something apart from a response to the affiliation with Harry Potter writer JK Rowling (opens in new tab), whose transphobic feedback have come to eclipse just about each inventive work related along with her in the previous couple of years. It is possible that GDQ, which has featured a number of trans streamers and not too long ago cancelled an occasion in Florida partly due to that state’s anti-LGBT+ legislation (opens in new tab), merely has no need to affiliate itself with the writer.
I’ve reached out to GDQ to ask about its reasoning for banning Harry Potter video games, and I will replace this piece if I hear again.
The ban may not be everlasting. There are two entries within the disallowed record which might be marked as “topic to additional assessment sooner or later,” and Harry Potter video games make up one in all them. It might be that if the Harry Potter model manages to efficiently disassociate itself from Rowling’s reactionary politics, we’ll at some point see Hogwarts grace a future GDQ. The opposite recreation that is topic to additional assessment, by the best way, is 5 Nights at Freddy’s. I’ve requested GDQ why that’s, too.
Though Hogwarts is probably the most notable entry on GDQ’s disallowed video games record, it’s miles from the one one. Different banned video games embody 2005’s God of Struggle (in all probability for its cringeworthy minigame-based intercourse scene), Ion Fury (which refused to take away homophobic content material (opens in new tab) in 2019), and, um, Frog Fractions. I used to be a bit baffled by that final one, however a sensible Reddit consumer named Camwood7 (opens in new tab) jogged my memory that the primary Frog Fractions recreation featured a “bug porn” phase that GDQ in all probability does not wish to stream out on its family-friendly charity stream. Honest play, actually.
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