Former game director Destiny 2 and Marathon Christopher Barrett has filed a lawsuit against Sony in December 2024, accusing the company of unfair dismissal, a sham investigation, and refusal to pay $45.5 million under the contract. The company immediately responded to the lawsuit and provided personal letters and recordings of Barrett’s conversations, which allegedly «reveal his pattern of misconduct».
In the examples, according to PC GamerThere are recordings of Barrett’s drunken phone calls with women, where he suggests that they play games with sexual overtones, such as «Truth or Dare», and questions such as «I guess you want to be obeyed?».
Barrett’s attorneys said Sony was distorting the nature of the interaction by selectively providing text messages and «implied conversations».
In his lawsuit, the former Marathon CEO claims that «intentionally destroyed his reputation by falsely and publicly implying that it had investigated and found him to be involved in sexual harassment of», subsequently ousting him over the claims. In fact, Barrett believes that the decision to fire him was made to avoid paying him more than $45 million under his contract, as well as to «shift blame and divert attention from their massive business failures».
Obviously, Sony denies everything and says that Barrett’s behavior was consistent with»: he allegedly «targeted» a lower-level employee with whom he did not work directly, first started a friendly conversation and gradually turned it romantic.
«He followed women’s personal Instagram accounts and reacted strongly if they did not respond to his messages. He brought up inappropriate topics such as their bodies, their relationships, his marriage, or talked about wanting to date them. He demanded that they participate in games with sexual overtones, texted them at all hours of the day and night, and offered to buy them gifts. He often referred to his wealth and ability to advance their careers».
Indeed, Barrett had the money — before he was fired, he received more than $38 million in the two years after Sony acquires Bungie studio. Another $45.5 million was to be divided into three installments and provided over 2024-2026. Putting aside the issue of the lawsuit, these figures are impressive, as they immediately bring to mind the news of numerous layoffs at Bungie over the past two years, including quite a few long-time employees who were known and loved by the Destiny community.
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