Chris Barrett was one of the prominent developers who was fired a few years ago during the Me Too scandals that hit the game industry.
But Barrett, a game artist, filed a lawsuit today against his former employers Sony Interactive Entertainment and Bungie, alleging they fired him to avoid giving him a $45 million payment he said he was entitled to. We have asked Sony/Bungie for comment.
Barrett’s lawsuit said the defendants ” 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.” And that was the payout he said he was entitled to under his employment agreement.
The lawsuit went on to say the companies were motivated by a need to “shift blame for and deflect attention away from their massive business failures. And to achieve those corporate objectives, they were willing to sacrifice Barrett.”
While that sounds despicable, Barrett was accused of crossing the line between professional and personal behavior. In the course of its journalistic investigation of the Me Too scandal, Bloomberg interviewed eight women in gaming who accused Barrett of sending inappropriate text messages.
A long career in ruin
Barrett started his career in the videogame industry by creating maps and levels for the game Myth, for free, as a fan, at night, after working his day job in New York, the lawsuit said. Bungie, the maker of Myth, recruited Barrett and for the next twenty-five years, Bungie and Barrett had a remarkable ride.
The suit said “Barrett drove the artistic development of some of the world’s most legendary video games franchises, including Halo and Destiny (the latter of which has been nominated for Best Ongoing Game at the 2024 Game Awards), acquired a valuable equity interest in Bungie, and became the driving force and lead designer for Bungie’s most important new gaming project, Marathon.”
That ride ended abruptly in 2024 when Sony, which had acquired Bungie for $3.6 Billion in 2022, acting in concert with Bungie, removed Barrett from his position in charge of developing Marathon and then baselessly fired him, allegedly for “cause”, following a supposed investigation, the lawsuit said.
Barrett alleges he was told about an investigation into his behavior when he was on a mental health leave. He alleges he attended the “interview” meeting with Sony’s legal department but was not advised to bring legal counse, and he said he was never shown any of the text messages.
“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 alleged.
Less than three weeks after this interview, Barrett was notified via Microsoft Teams that he had engaged in unspecified “gross misconduct” and would be terminated for “Cause”. Defendants refused to explain further and told him that nothing he could say would make a difference, despite never giving him a chance to engage with the allegations in the first place, the lawsuit said.
The cause was a vague violation of Bungie’s harassment policy, the lawsuit said.
“They then completed the Machiavellian trifecta by providing wildly misleading statements to Bloomberg designed to: (i) deflect blame for Sony’s poorly performing $3.6 Billion acquisition of Bungie and delays in video game production by casting shade on Barrett for his role on Marathon and (ii) shift blame for their own public #MeToo problems by falsely insinuating that the accusations of severe misconduct had been directed at Barrett, when they had not,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also said “Sony’s $3.6 Billion acquisition of Bungie has been a disaster.” It said Bungie
has struggled to meet financial targets, has fallen behind on deadlines, and Marathon (a centerpiece of the transaction) has been the subject of intense public criticism. By terminating Barrett for Cause, Defendants could save $45 million and pin the Marathon issues on Barrett in one ell swoop.
Bungie’s struggles should not have been a surprise, the lawsuit continued. Before the Sony acquisition, Bungie was in a difficult financial position. Destiny, the video game franchise responsible for the majority of Bungie’s revenues, was not performing as well as Bungie had hoped. Yet, Bungie was able to strike a deal with Sony that enabled Bungie management to retain certain control post-acquisition. When Bungie thereafter underdelivered, with Marathon delayed and Bungie’s senior leadership in disarray, and with Sony looking to hold Bungie leadership accountable, Bungie offered Barrett (who had always been on the
creative side, and never active in business management) as a sacrifice, the lawsuit said.
And the lawsuit said prior to Barrett’s termination, Bungie faced considerable public accusations of misconduct toward women. Firing Barrett allowed defendants to falsely pin those issues on Barrett and create a narrative that they were taking harassment issues seriously. After all, if they would fire a creator of their two main franchises, they could fire anyone. Never mind that Barrett had not engaged or been accused of the misconduct at issue, much less any misconduct, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claimed that Barrett has been harmed financially, physically, and emotionally.
“He has been the subject of harassment and public ridicule, has lost friends and professional opportunities, and has seen relationships with family strained. His lifelong dream of launching his own video game company (once within reach for a respected designer of multiple legendary games) has been crushed,” the lawsuit said.
Barrett joined Bungie in 1999, after drawing attention as a Myth modder. He was credited for work on Myth II.
In those early days, Barrett noted through the lawsuit, “Colorful language and off-color jokes were common. Employees frequently and openly referred to things as ‘gay’. Sexual ‘mom’ jokes and racist
jokes were commonplace. Nudity was not prohibited — Bungie personnel engaged in ‘moonings’ in the office, where employees would pull their pants down and display their buttocks (a practice that continued to some degree over the years).”
Barrett went on to work on Halo, which drew Microsoft’s attention, leading to the acquisition of Bungie. He also had prominent roles later, like lead environment artist of Halo 2. He received a $200,000 bonus for his role on Halo 3. Then Bungie began plans to spin out of Microsoft.
In that deal, Barrett received, starting on October 1, 2007, Barrett was to receive “founder shares” equivalent to approximately 2.5% of the newly spun off Bungie. On December 31, 2010, Barrett signed an employment agreement with Bungie and was granted 336,375 shares of Series B-2 Preferred Stock and 48,000 shares of Common Stock. All these shares were to vest over the following decade, would automatically vest upon a change of control, and any unvested shares would be forfeited if Barrett left Bungie voluntarily (which provided significant incentive for Barrett to stay at Bungie).
Bungie made Barrett responsible for the creative and art design for Bungie’s next franchise, later named Destiny. Barrett was named co-creator of Destiny alongside Bungie cofounder Jason Jones. Destiny released in 2014 and it was a big hit, and it reaped revenues for years to come as a “live service” game. When Destiny 2 was delayed, Barrett was assigned to do a new expansion for Destiny and he did it ontime and under budget. He then helped with Destiny 2, which shipped in 2017. Post launch, he became the Destiny 2 game director in charge of the live services team and his pay was increased later to $240,000, the lawsuit said.
In December 2021, IGN dropped a bombshell article about #MeToo problems around sexual harassment at Bungie. Without referring to senior managers by name, the story described a range of bad behavior as well as poor work conditions such as unpaid crunch time and that Bungie leadership protected these managers. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons responded to the allegations, saying the company had taken various initiatives to improve behavior and working conditions.
While denying any role in such behavior, Barrett alleged in the lawsuit that he witnessed “a very senior Bungie executive” texting him 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 lawsuit alleged 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. And it said 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). Barrett reprimanded him over email, but he faced no consequences,” the lawsuit alleged. “During an interview, a potential hire told Barrett that Bungie should name a Destiny faction ‘The Rotten Cunt.’ Barrett reported the comment to the group evaluating the candidate and insisted that Bungie not hire him.” Leadership still hired the candidate.
The lawsuit said a female office administrator shared explicit stories about her sexual exploits; and “at least one Bungie employee frequently exposed himself in the office, including by pulling down his pants in the middle of the office and pressing his exposed buttocks against glass overlooking the entire studio.”
Despite the #MeToo problems, Sony chose to go ahead with the acquisition of Bungie, the lawsuit alleged. In January 2022, Barrett signed an agreement that would have paid him in the $45 million range. On January 31, 2022, Sony announced the $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie. The deal closed on July 15, 2022. Barrett got a $1.8 million payment but was due $45.6 million.
Barrett’s lawsuit claimed that Bungie lost its autonomy because the division underperformed Sony’s expectations on performance metrics and financial targets. In May 2023, Barrett was publicly revealed as the game director on Marathon.
In October 2023, Bungie had a mass layoff of around 100 people. Cost cutting ensued and games such as Marathon were delayed. By February 2025, Sony games head Jim Ryan announced 8% of Sony’s game group would be laid off. That was 900 people.
Barrett moved to Florida, and while there, he was replaced by Joe Ziegler as game director of Marathon and was blamed for Marathon’s delays, the lawsuit alleged. Barrett was renamed “franchise game director.” In effect, he was moved upstairs with nothing to manage, while Barrett’s manager allegedly belittled him publicly. Barrett then filed for a mental health leave. Then the “investigation” began.
Weeks later, Barrett was fired. And after his termination, in July 2024, 155 more people at Bungie were absorbed into Sony and 220 more Bungie jobs were eliminated.
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