Hogwarts Legacy sold over 12M copies to generate $850M in global sales
Warner Bros. Games announced Thursday that over 12 million copies of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy had been sold worldwide since its release, generating $850 million in sales.
Earlier, the Harry Potter action RPG set a new record for most people watching a single-player game simultaneously on Twitch — with 1.28 million viewers on launch day.
According to reports, fans spent over 267 million hours playing Hogwarts Legacy between February 10 and 21. Warner Bros. Games announced Thursday that the game had clocked in at a staggering 280 million hours of playtime, setting a new company record.
Warner Bros. Discovery also revealed increased global franchise fan engagement overall. Wizarding World Digital garnered 300 percent more traffic than “the normal monthly unique visitor average” during the first ten days of February.
During the earnings call for the fourth quarter, CEO David Zaslav talked about the company’s strong quarterly results and its commitment to Harry Potter and other popular intellectual property. He said the company plans to capitalize on these “one-of-a-kind franchises” optimally.
Boycott against Hogwarts Legacy
The release and subsequent success of the game sparked heated debate among fans due to J.K. Rowling’s outspoken views on transgender people, with activists accusing her of transphobia.
Although Rowling strongly rejects such claims, her critics have called for a boycott of Hogwarts Legacy. Per NBC News, the boycott resulted in around 300 LGBTQ advocates and allies publicly protesting against the game on Twitch for a week.
While Rowling had no creative input into the game, she still stands to profit from it. Some claim that buying the game means supporting her “anti-trans” opinions.
Rowling’s views on transgender people have been in the limelight since she liked a 2018 social media post referring to transgender women as “men in dresses.”
The British author then self-published an essay in 2020, claiming that transgender activists were “seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators.”
Rowling has responded to criticisms of her statements in a new podcast, “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” released on February 21.
About Hogwarts Legacy
Published by Portkey Games and developed by Avalanche Software, Hogwarts Legacy allows players to explore a fully realized version of Hogwarts Castle on next-generation platforms.
The game takes place in the 1800s, and players assume the role of a gisted fifth-year student at Hogwarts with an extraordinary ability to use potent, ancient magic.
David Haddad, president of Warner Bros. Games, said the company is “thrilled and proud” to see the response from players and reviewers worldwide.
Haddad explained that the Avalanche team had made a Wizarding World experience that is so good that it fulfills fans’ dreams of what it would be like to go to Hogwarts.
So far, feedback from players has been extremely positive. On review aggregator Metacritic, it had a 9.1 out of 10 user score as of early Friday, based on more than 900 reviews. The game also has an average of 85/100 on Metacritic.
The game is now available for desktop, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S. Fans with PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch will be able to play this game later this year.
