I'm sorry if I'm being a bit harsh with this, I don't mean to accuse anyone of being a bad person. Honestly with a lot of things I go "enjoy the media but be aware of the issues it has," even when my problem is antisemitic depictions. Even when talking about HP, in ways that don't promote or support the author. But with this game I'm struggling to have the same attitude. From start to finish, this game is distilled antisemitic tropes, made by a bigot (another one, in addition to JKR).
The goblins were always problematic. There's a person on tiktok, theineffableshe, who collected the problems in the original book canon under the hashtag ItsNotTheNoses. They didn't have big noses in the text, but they were described as:
Short, swarthy with a guttural language
Clever faces with sallow skin and pointed beards
Treated as lesser by nature
Ruthless and known for their greed
Pursue someone who owes them money with violent threats
With cultural differences that make them impossible to trust
Harmed by the bad guys but still thought to support them
Only worth associating with for their metalworking and control of the economy
And if that's not enough, in the books, the most prominent goblin character betrays Harry, who is her Christ-allegory (he literally sacrifices himself to save the others and then comes back to life).
Not all of this is just normal goblin lore. Some of it is an added JKR flair. And every single trait is antisemitic.
And then they got some alt right gamergate bigot to create the story for the game, and he chose to dive in further. Even after he left, they deepened the antisemitism of the lore.
They added explicit ties between the goblins and the dark wizards.
They added the kidnapping of children, which, put together with everything else in this context, is just blood libel.
They put into the game a statement from a character about goblins being unable to appreciate art. It's a completely absurd thing to say considering the quality and coveted status of goblin made artifacts in the world of Harry Potter. In the real world, this is a claim that was made against Jews and other groups hated by white supremacists.
They chose a historical time frame of pogroms, where our people were murdered in large massacres that often had support from authorities.
They added a ram's horn artifact that strongly resembles a silver plated Shofar - a Jewish ritual item. Said horn in the game is from 1612, the same year as the events that led to the Fettmilch uprising. These resulted in many Jewish deaths and more pogroms. According to the item's description, it was blown to rally the goblins and to annoy witches and wizards. It was stuffed with gorgonzola to mute it, a specifically non-kosher cheese (most kinds are kosher).
And, of course, they made the player a slave owner and gave them the mission of stopping the goblins. It's possible to choose to side with the goblins - but that choice means siding with dark wizards and child kidnappers, it leads to the bad ending, and the character is required to correct their mistake.
Honestly, what in this game are you able to enjoy enough that you can look past this level of antisemitism, knowing the creator is a bigot and almost certainly antisemitic? What's in there, when this is the plot? Visiting the kitchens, where the happy eager slaves are worked?
Even the promotional material featuring the goblins looks like the old caricature from Nazi propaganda just shaved its beard.
Playing this game, even if you choose to pirate it, is like printing out a picture of an antisemitic caricature and hanging it on your wall, saying "well, I didn't pay the artist, I just like this art." What is there in this art to like?
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