Former 'Marathon' Director Sues Bungie And Sony, Accuses Management Of MeTooing Him To Avoid $45 Million Payment
Former Marathon director Chris Barrett filed a lawsuit against his former employers Bungie and its parent company Sony accusing them of cooking up a MeToo accusation in order to fire him and avoid paying a $45 million payment.
Barrett announced the lawsuit in a post to X. He wrote, “The past nine months following my departure from Bungie have been very difficult and painful for me as I’ve had to endure rampant speculation, unfounded attacks on my reputation, and innuendo about what happened behind the scenes to cause me to be fired after 25 years of loyal service. I want to thank everyone who has been there for me.”
“I’ve eagerly awaited the opportunity to get the truth out there and tell my side of the story, and now is that time. Today, I filed a lawsuit against Sony and Bungie to hold them accountable for their conduct and the damage that has been done to my reputation and my career,” he continued.
Barrett concluded, “I am confident that the facts are on my side and look forward to clearing my name through the legal process. Because this is a pending legal matter, there is nothing else I can say about it at this time.”
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Jason Schreier at Bloomberg claimed back at the end of August that “Barrett was terminated following an internal investigation in which at least eight female employees raised complaints earlier this year that he had behaved inappropriately toward them, according to eight people, including multiple women who reported Barrett as well as other Bungie employees who were either involved in the investigation or spoke to the women involved.”
Schreier added, “The investigation found that Barrett called lower-level female employees attractive, asked them to play truth-or-dare and made references to his wealth and power within the studio, suggesting that he could help advance their careers, according to two people familiar with the case.”
Barrett told Bloomberg at the time, “I feel that I have always conducted myself with integrity and been respectful and supportive of my colleagues, many of whom I consider my closest friends. I never understood my communications to be unwanted and I would have never thought they could possibly have made anyone feel uncomfortable. If anyone ever felt that way about their interaction with me, I am truly sorry.”
According to Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat, who viewed Barrett’s lawsuit, he’s alleging that “they fired him to avoid giving him a $45 million payment he said he was entitled to.”
The lawsuit specifically claims that Bungie and Sony “deliberately destroyed Barrett’s reputation by falsely, and publicly, insinuating they had ‘investigated’ Barrett and ‘found’ he had engaged in sexual misconduct. Defendants did not care that none of it was true; they had blatant motivations for their brazen scheme.”
It also notes that Bungie and Sony wanted to “shift blame for and deflect attention away from their massive business failures. And to achieve those corporate objectives, they were willing to sacrifice Barrett.”
Sony and Bungie’s business failures have become public knowledge with Bungie CEO Pete Parsons announcing the company was eliminating nearly 30% of its workforce at the end of July. He wrote in a blog post, “Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon. That means beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio’s workforce. “
He later revealed that the company was integrating 155 employees or roughly 12% of its workforce into parent company, Sony, “We are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters.”
Parsons also shared that an incubation project was also going to be spun off into its own studio, “We are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development. “
Nevertheless, the lawsuit alleges that Barrett was notified of his termination via Microsoft Teams and an investigation only found that he had engaged in “gross misconduct,” and was in violation of Bungie’s harassment policy, but did not explain what it was or provide any details at all.
According to Takahashi, Barrett was never given “a chance to engage with the allegations in the first place.” In fact, Barrett was allegedly terminated while he was on leave for mental health.
However, he did attend an “interview” with Sony’s legal department, but was advised not to bring legal counsel.
In that meeting the suit states that “Barrett was never asked whether he had ever engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct, whether he ever sent inappropriate sexual or pornographic materials to a co-worker, or whether he ever retaliated against a co-worker for rebuffing his advances or discriminated against a female colleague on the basis of her sex. Barrett was not asked those questions because Barrett did not engage in, and has not been accused of, any such conduct.”
The lawsuit noted, “They then completed the Machiavellian trifecta by providing wildly misleading statements to Bloomberg designed to: (i) deflect blame for Sony’s poorly performing $3.6 Billion acquisition of Bungie and delays in video game production by casting shade on Barrett for his role on Marathon and (ii) shift blame for their own public #MeToo problems by falsely insinuating that the accusations of severe misconduct had been directed at Barrett, when they had not.”
As for the $45 million payment, that reportedly came in the wake of Bungie being bought by Sony for $3.6 billion back at the end of January 2022.
According to Takahashi, “Barrett signed an agreement that would have paid him in the $45 million range.” However, he was only paid $1.8 million despite being owed $45.6 million.
What do you make of Barrett’s lawsuit against Bungie and Sony?
As one of the dupes that played a lot of Destiny 2 I find this to be very funny. There are no good guys here.