Sony has responded to a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed in December 2024 by former Destiny 2 and Marathon recreation director Christopher Barrett, saying Barrett’s termination in 2024 was “justified,” and that his lawsuit is “meritless.” To again up its declare, Sony included a number of examples of written communications between Barrett and feminine subordinates in its reply, which it claims “reveal his sample of misconduct.”
The examples in Sony’s submitting embody alleged drunk calls, requests to play “sexually charged video games of ‘Truth or Dare’,” and feedback similar to “You wish to be worshipped, I feel?” Barrett’s attorneys say that Sony is misrepresenting the character of the interactions by cherry-picking textual content messages and “alleged conversations.”
Barrett sued Sony over the declare that the corporate had “intentionally destroyed Barrett’s status by falsely, and publicly, insinuating they’d ‘investigated’ Barrett and ‘discovered’ he had engaged in sexual misconduct,” and subsequently fired him because of these claims. The actual purpose for his termination, he alleged, was to keep away from paying him greater than $45 million he was owed beneath his employment settlement, and to “shift blame for and deflect consideration from their large enterprise failures.”
In its response, out there in full by way of Game File, Sony denies Barrett’s declare, saying it performed a “thorough inner investigation” of the complaints towards him and located that his habits “was constant: he focused a lower-level, feminine worker he wasn’t working with immediately, initially engaged in pleasant dialog, and progressively pushed boundaries with the worker by making delicate references to her bodily look or expressing his curiosity in her romantically.”
“Barrett tried to create an unprofessional stage of intimacy along with his victims,” Sony wrote in its response. “He requested to observe private Instagram accounts and would specific anger to the ladies in the event that they failed to reply to his messages. He would deliver up inappropriate matters like their physique, their relationships, his marriage, or his need so far them. He would demand that they take part in sexually charged video games of ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘Ask Me Anything.’ He texted them in any respect hours of the day and night time. He supplied to purchase them presents. He usually referenced his wealth and his capacity to advance their careers.”
Barrett did certainly have wealth to flaunt: Prior to his termination, Barrett was paid greater than $38 million over the 2 years following Sony’s acquisition of Bungie.
Sony’s submitting contains a number of examples of communications between Barrett and feminine staff at Bungie, which embody questions and feedback about their look and clothes and alleged drunken telephone calls; in a single alternate, in response to the submitting, he stated he hoped the worker’s boyfriend did not thoughts that he was texting her a lot, as a result of “I do not need him to get the suitable thought.” The submitting additionally states that in not less than one occasion, Barrett initiated a FaceTime name with a feminine worker “late at night time whereas drunk” regardless of her “express request in writing for Barrett to acknowledge ‘boundaries’.”
Barrett denied any intentional wrongdoing when he filed his lawsuit towards Sony.
“I really feel that I’ve at all times performed myself with integrity and been respectful and supportive of my colleagues, a lot of whom I contemplate my closest mates,” he stated in an announcement on the time. “I by no means understood my communications to be undesirable and I might have by no means thought they might presumably have made anybody really feel uncomfortable. If anybody ever felt that approach about their interplay with me, I’m really sorry.”
Sony, nevertheless, claims that even in circumstances the place he was instructed by his subordinates to cease, he “initially feigned compliance” however then “promptly picked again up once more along with his disturbing habits in his subsequent communication.”
“Incredibly, Barrett’s grievance alleges that these encounters had been ‘of mutual curiosity’ and that he ‘revered any expressed boundaries’,” Sony’s submitting states. “Such allegations are belied by the ladies’s a number of direct stories to Human Resources, the messages exchanged, and the ladies’s contemporaneous conversations with their colleagues describing Barrett’s misconduct.”
In an announcement offered to Game File, attorneys representing Barrett stated Sony’s submitting misrepresents the precise nature of the communications between him and different staff at Bungie. They keep that the true purpose for his termination was to keep away from paying him the stability remaining on his contract.
“Sony continues to disingenuously cherry decide textual content messages and alleged conversations and make unsupported and conclusory statements to defame Christopher and justify terminating him to keep away from paying him what he was owed beneath his employment agreements,” Barrett’s authorized staff stated. “It is telling that Sony doesn’t embody the complete textual content messages as displays, or the complete content material of those conversations, and nothing in Sony’s response supplies a reputable authorized or factual foundation to terminate Christopher for trigger.
“Christopher is assured that when all of the proof is offered, it will likely be clear that Sony engaged in a scheme to strip him of his position and the fairness awards he earned for his 25 years of loyal service to the corporate.”
There is some huge cash on the desk—but additionally some huge cash already paid. Sony’s reply features a detailed breakdown of what Barrett earned following Sony’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022, and what was left on his contract when he was terminated: He was paid $36,811,044 in 2022, and $1,883,057 in 2023; he was as a result of gather one other $45,579,627 from 2024-2026, damaged down into three funds of $941,529 every for unvested RSUs [restricted stock units] in May and November 2024 and May 2025, and three funds of $14,251,680 every for re-vested shares (together with Premium Bonus) in July 2024, July 2025, and July 2026.
Putting the questions of the lawsuit apart, these figures are staggering to see showing alongside the layoffs at Bungie in 2023 and 2024 that put lots of of individuals out of labor, together with quite a few long-time staff who had been recognized and beloved by the Destiny group.
Sony stated in its submitting that it intends to file a movement to dismiss Barrett’s lawsuit, and is looking for prices and bills together with lawyer’s charges associated to the case.
