Christopher Barrett was fired from Bungie last year, only a month after Marathon, a game he was director of, was revealed. Barrett’s removal however wouldn’t be clear to the public until earlier this year, when reports of his firing due to inappropriate conduct came to light.
Now, Barrett is alleging that not only are the allegations against his conduct unfounded and untrue, Sony fired him as a means of avoiding having to pay him $45 million he says he’s owed.
The lawsuit, per a VentureBeat, claims that Sony and Bungie “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.”
In Barrett’s own statement he says “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.
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.”
The lawsuit goes on to claim that Barrett was never directly asked about the alleged conduct that led to his firing that was listed in Bloomberg’s report.
“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 states.
The suit evokes the #MeToo movement, the cultural movement of (mostly) women and other victims of sexual harassment speaking out against their abusers and the societal acknowledgement of the harassment women have faced for years, without being able to speak out against their abusers. The movement was a collective force of women speaking out in solidarity with one another.
It even alleges that the statements Bloomberg collected for its report were purposely misleading, as a way to deflect blame onto Barrett, and stretches it further to say that Barrett’s firing was a way to pin the development issues and internal delays of Marathon on Barrett’s misconduct
Now that he’s been ousted from Bungie, the suit says that Barrett’s “dreams” of opening his own studio have been “crushed” due what the allegations against him have done to his reputation.
Bungie has a well-reported history of having a toxic work environment, something the suit acknowledges, but the suit claims that Barrett had no part in the toxic history, implying that he has taken the blame for those who are really at fault.
At the time of Bloomberg’s report, it claimed that multiple women had reported Barrett internally to HR, and Bloomberg spoke to at least eight women who said they faced harassment from Barrett.
The $45 million figure comes from a deal Barrett says to have signed with Sony that would have seen him paid that amount, and that Sony has been able to side-step that payment with Barrett’s firing.
It’s still too early to determine what might happen with this suit, but it will be interesting to see if Barrett and his legal team will actually be able to prove his side of the story. He was a prominent figure in Bungie for years, and an artist that no doubt worked on aspects of Bungie’s games that players loved.
That his firing would be, as he alleges, wrongful and with the purpose of avoiding a massive payout to him feels like the kind of risk a corporation like Sony wouldn’t exactly take.
For Barrett’s side of the story to be true, it also would involve multiple people conspiring to specifically oust him and consistently lying about his behavior for some undisclosed gain. For example, it’s easy to see why Sony would want to avoid paying him the $45 million he says he’s owed, but what was in it for those women who reported Barrett in the first place?
That’s just one of many questions Barrett’s side of the story doesn’t answer in the suit, so it’ll be interesting, to say the least, as to what happens going forward and how Bungie and Sony respond.
Source – [VentureBeat, Chris Barrett on Twitter]