Former Bungie Developer Chris Barrett Sues Bungie and Sony for ‘Falsely Destroying His Reputation’

Former Marathon reboot director Chris Barrett filed suit against Bungie and Sony for “deliberately destroying[ing his] reputation by falsely and publicly implying that they had ‘investigated’ Barrett and ‘discovered’ that she had engaged in sexual misconduct,” and to avoid paying her a $45 million settlement.

Bungie reportedly fired Barrett earlier this year following an internal investigation into inappropriate behavior against female colleagues. In court papers, Barrett’s lawyers suggest that her former employer “didn’t care that any of it was true; they had blatant motivations for their brazen scheme,” and only wanted to “deflect blame and divert attention from their massive business failures.” “.

“And to achieve those corporate goals, they were willing to sacrifice Barrett,” the papers claimed (thanks, VentureBeat).

“Barrett was never asked whether she had ever engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct, whether she had ever sent inappropriate sexual or pornographic materials to a co-worker, or whether she had ever retaliated against a co-worker for rejecting her advances or discriminated against her. a colleague depending on her sex.

“Barrett was not asked those questions because Barrett did not participate in and has not been accused of such conduct,” the newspapers added.

Three weeks into the investigation, Barrett alleged he was fired via Microsoft Teams for gross misconduct.

“They then completed the Machiavellian trifecta by providing wildly misleading statements to Bloomberg designed to: (i) deflect blame for the poor performance of Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie and video game production delays to throw shade at Barrett for her role in Marathon and (ii) shift the blame for their own public #MeToo issues by falsely implying that allegations of serious misconduct had been directed at Barrett, when they were not,” the demand. aggregate.

“[Barrett] “He has been subjected to harassment and public ridicule, has lost friends and professional opportunities, and has seen his relationships with his family strained,” the newspapers explain. “His lifelong dream of launching his own video game company (once within reach of a respected designer of multiple legendary games) has been crushed.”