Chris Barrett was one of many outstanding builders who was fired in March 2024 within the wake of the Me Too scandals that hit the sport trade.
However Barrett, a sport artist, filed a lawsuit right now towards his former employers Sony Interactive Leisure and Bungie, alleging they fired him to keep away from giving him a $45 million fee he mentioned he was entitled to. We’ve got requested Sony/Bungie for remark.
Barrett’s lawsuit mentioned the defendants ” intentionally destroyed Barrett’s repute by falsely, and publicly, insinuating they’d ‘investigated’ Barrett and ‘found’ he had engaged in sexual misconduct. Defendants didn’t care that none of it was true; they’d blatant motivations for his or her brazen scheme.” And that was the payout he mentioned he was entitled to underneath his employment settlement.
The lawsuit went on to say the businesses have been motivated by a have 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.”
Whereas that sounds despicable, Barrett was accused of crossing the road between skilled and private conduct. In the midst of its journalistic investigation of the Me Too scandal, Bloomberg interviewed eight individuals, together with a number of ladies who reported Barrett, in addition to different Bungie workers who have been both concerned within the investigation or spoke to the ladies concerned.
A protracted profession in destroy
Chris Barrett, previously of Bungie.
Barrett began his profession within the videogame trade by creating maps and ranges for the sport Fable, without cost, as a fan, at evening, after working his day job in New York, the lawsuit mentioned. Bungie, the maker of Fable, recruited Barrett and for the subsequent twenty-five years, Bungie and Barrett had a exceptional experience.
The go well with mentioned “Barrett drove the artistic development of some of the world’s most legendary video games franchises, including Halo and Destiny (the latter of which has been nominated for Best Ongoing Game at the 2024 Game Awards), acquired a valuable equity interest in Bungie, and became the driving force and lead designer for Bungie’s most important new gaming project, Marathon.”
That experience ended abruptly in 2024 when Sony, which had acquired Bungie for $3.6 Billion in 2022, performing in live performance with Bungie, eliminated Barrett from his place accountable for creating Marathon after which baselessly fired him, allegedly for “cause”, following a supposed investigation, the lawsuit mentioned.
Barrett alleges he was informed about an investigation into his conduct when he was on a psychological well being depart. He alleges he attended the “interview” assembly with Sony’s authorized division however was not suggested to deliver authorized counse, and he mentioned he was by no means proven any of the textual content messages.
“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 alleged.
Lower than three weeks after this interview, Barrett was notified by way of Microsoft Groups that he had engaged in unspecified “gross misconduct” and could be terminated for “Cause”. Defendants refused to clarify additional and informed him that nothing he might say would make a distinction, regardless of by no means giving him an opportunity to have interaction with the allegations within the first place, the lawsuit mentioned.
The trigger was a imprecise violation of Bungie’s harassment coverage, the lawsuit mentioned.
“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,” the lawsuit mentioned.
The lawsuit additionally mentioned “Sony’s $3.6 Billion acquisition of Bungie has been a disaster.” It mentioned Bungie has struggled to satisfy monetary targets, has fallen behind on deadlines, and Marathon (a centerpiece of the transaction) has been the topic of intense public criticism. By terminating Barrett for Trigger, Defendants might save $45 million and pin the Marathon points on Barrett in a single fell swoop.
Bungie’s struggles mustn’t have been a shock, the lawsuit continued. Earlier than the Sony acquisition, Bungie was in a troublesome monetary place. Future, the online game franchise accountable for almost all of Bungie’s revenues, was not performing in addition to Bungie had hoped. But, Bungie was in a position to strike a cope with Sony that enabled Bungie administration to retain sure management post-acquisition. When Bungie thereafter underdelivered, with Marathon delayed and Bungie’s senior management in disarray, and with Sony trying to maintain Bungie management accountable, Bungie provided Barrett (who had at all times been on thecreative facet, and by no means energetic in enterprise administration) as a sacrifice, the lawsuit mentioned.
And the lawsuit mentioned previous to Barrett’s termination, Bungie confronted appreciable public accusations of misconduct towards ladies. Firing Barrett allowed defendants to falsely pin these points on Barrett and create a story that they have been taking harassment points significantly. In any case, if they might fireplace a creator of their two principal franchises, they may fireplace anybody. By no means thoughts that Barrett had not engaged or been accused of the misconduct at difficulty, a lot much less any misconduct, the lawsuit mentioned.
The lawsuit claimed that Barrett has been harmed financially, bodily, and emotionally.
“He has been the subject of harassment and public ridicule, has lost friends and professional opportunities, and has seen relationships with family strained. His lifelong dream of launching his own video game company (once within reach for a respected designer of multiple legendary games) has been crushed,” the lawsuit mentioned.
Barrett joined Bungie in 1999, after drawing consideration as a Fable modder. He was credited for work on Fable II.
In these early days, Barrett famous by way of the lawsuit, “Colorful language and off-color jokes were common. Employees frequently and openly referred to things as ‘gay’. Sexual ‘mom’ jokes and racistjokes were commonplace. Nudity was not prohibited — Bungie personnel engaged in ‘moonings’ in the office, where employees would pull their pants down and display their buttocks (a practice that continued to some degree over the years).”
Barrett went on to work on Halo, which drew Microsoft’s consideration, resulting in the acquisition of Bungie. He additionally had outstanding roles later, like lead atmosphere artist of Halo 2. He acquired a $200,000 bonus for his function on Halo 3. Then Bungie started plans to spin out of Microsoft.
In that deal, Barrett acquired, beginning on October 1, 2007, Barrett was to obtain “founder shares” equal to roughly 2.5% of the newly spun off Bungie. On December 31, 2010, Barrett signed an employment settlement with Bungie and was granted 336,375 shares of Sequence B-2 Most well-liked Inventory and 48,000 shares of Widespread Inventory. All these shares have been to vest over the next decade, would robotically vest upon a change of management, and any unvested shares could be forfeited if Barrett left Bungie voluntarily (which offered important incentive for Barrett to remain at Bungie).
Bungie made Barrett chargeable for the artistic and artwork design for Bungie’s subsequent franchise, later named Future. Barrett was named co-creator of Future alongside Bungie cofounder Jason Jones. Future launched in 2014 and it was an enormous hit, and it reaped revenues for years to return as a “live service” sport. When Future 2 was delayed, Barrett was assigned to do a brand new enlargement for Future and he did it ontime and underneath funds. He then helped with Future 2, which shipped in 2017. Publish launch, he turned the Future 2 sport director accountable for the dwell companies group and his pay was elevated later to $240,000, the lawsuit mentioned.
In December 2021, IGN dropped a bombshell article about #MeToo issues round sexual harassment at Bungie. With out referring to senior managers by identify, the story described a spread of dangerous conduct in addition to poor work situations reminiscent of unpaid crunch time and that Bungie management protected these managers. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons responded to the allegations, saying the corporate had taken varied initiatives to enhance conduct and dealing situations.
Whereas denying any function in such conduct, Barrett alleged within the lawsuit that he witnessed “a very senior Bungie executive” texting him and others “sexually suggestive material, including lewd photographs, texts about his sex life (including graphic descriptions of particular sex acts), and texts concerning the appearance of women working for Bungie.”
The lawsuit alleged the identical senior Bungie government steadily confirmed up for work drunk, attending group conferences whereas clearly intoxicated, and engaged in sexual conduct at Bungie-sponsored occasions. And it mentioned certainly one of Bungie’s founding members made frequent sexist and racist feedback in group settings.
The lawsuit mentioned a feminine workplace administrator shared express tales about her sexual exploits; and “at least one Bungie employee frequently exposed himself in the office, including by pulling down his pants in the middle of the office and pressing his exposed buttocks against glass overlooking the entire studio.”
Regardless of the #MeToo issues, Sony selected to go forward with the acquisition of Bungie, the lawsuit alleged. In January 2022, Barrett signed an settlement that might have paid him within the $45 million vary. On January 31, 2022, Sony introduced the $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie. The deal closed on July 15, 2022. Barrett obtained a $1.8 million fee however was due $45.6 million.
Barrett’s lawsuit claimed that Bungie misplaced its autonomy as a result of the division underperformed Sony’s expectations on efficiency metrics and monetary targets. In Could 2023, Barrett was publicly revealed as the sport director on Marathon.
In October 2023, Bungie had a mass layoff of round 100 individuals. Price slicing ensued and video games reminiscent of Marathon have been delayed. By February 2025, Sony video games head Jim Ryan introduced 8% of Sony’s sport group could be laid off. That was 900 individuals.
Barrett moved to Florida, and whereas there, he was changed by Joe Ziegler as sport director of Marathon and was blamed for Marathon’s delays, the lawsuit alleged. Barrett was renamed “franchise game director.” In impact, he was moved upstairs with nothing to handle, whereas Barrett’s supervisor allegedly belittled him publicly. Barrett then filed for a psychological well being depart. Then the “investigation” started.
Weeks later, Barrett was fired. And after his termination, in July 2024, 155 extra individuals at Bungie have been absorbed into Sony and 220 extra Bungie jobs have been eradicated.
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