Chris Barrett’s defense - everyone at Bungie did it too (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, February 20, 2025, 07:24 (1 day, 13 hours, 53 min. ago)
edited by Cody Miller, Thursday, February 20, 2025, 08:08

So Chris Barrett filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination. His defense is basically that everyone else was just as bad.

A very senior Bungie executive texted Barrett 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 same senior Bungie executive frequently showed up for work drunk, attending group meetings while clearly intoxicated, and engaged in sexual conduct at Bungie sponsored events

One of Bungie's founding members made frequent sexist and racist comments in group settings. For example, in a leadership meeting, he joked that "a woman's place is barefoot and pregnant" (or words to that effect)

Bungie maintained an email channel that shared lewd and semi-pornographic content to the entire studio. Those images were occasionally shared on a projector at studio events

For many years, Bungie had a "knighting" ceremony for long-time employees. As part of that ceremony, the "knighted" employee (male or female) would be required to kneel in front of senior Bungie management to be "knighted" with a sword. During the ceremony it was common for lewd comments to be made, induding a statement that the kneeling employee had "assumed the position, like your mom before you" — an obvious reference to oral sex. "Knighting" ceremonies were done in front of the entire studio

https://www.gamefile.news/p/sony-bungie-christopher-barrett-lawsuit-response

Sony basically went point by point to shut down his case. Looks like they aren’t going to just give in here.

https://www.scribd.com/document/830250465/Christopher-Barrett-v-Sony-Interactive-Entertainment-LLC-and-Bungie-Inc-202...

At least an amusing section in all this is Sony recognizing Destiny as a legendary video game franchise, but not Halo.

Defendants recognize that the allegation in Paragraph 2 that Halo and Destiny are "some of the world's most legendary video games franchises" is a matter of opinion, but Defendants are of the opinion that Destiny is indeed a legendary video game franchise. Defendants deny the remaining allegations set forth in Paragraph 2 of the Complaint.