Another week, more headlines about woes befalling Bungie, developer of Destiny 2 and Marathon. A pair of stories have emerged regarding a high profile lawsuit and poor hiring practices, and it all sounds like a giant mess.
The first and more prominent story is that Chris Barrett, 25 year Bungie veteran and former Marathon director, is suing Bungie after being removed from that role and then fired. Months after this happened, Bloomberg published a report about the alleged reasoning for this, which involved eight women making complaints about Barrett’s behavior:
“The investigation found that Barrett called lower-level female employees attractive, asked them to play truth-or-dare and made references to his wealth and power within the studio, suggesting that he could help advance their careers, according to two people familiar with the case.”
In the new lawsuit, Barrett is now saying he was not what they portrayed him as, which destroyed his reputation, and the real reason that Bungie wanted him out was to avoid a payout of $45 million that he would have gotten as a result of his previous retention agreement. He is also seeking defamation damages for “no less than $100 million.” Then it appears he wants another $45 million for “exemplary damages” in addition to what he’s owed for his retention agreement.
In a coordinated PR campaign that involved emailing the suit to me and other journalists, he published a planned GamesBeat piece detailing the case and rebuttal to the accusations:
“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.
Barrett then goes on to detail what he says is actual gross misconduct from other Bungie leadership, for which they have received no repercussions:
“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.”
Bungie and Sony have as of yet given no response to this, and it’s clear it’s going to be a mess to sort out, which could take years. And Bungie will have to take this on without its star General Counsel, Don McGowan, who was laid off along with hundreds of other employees earlier this year.
And well, speaking of Don McGowan, in the wake of his firing he has been extremely outspoken about issues within Bungie, which leads us to the second item of the day. During an interview with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (via Game Post) McGowan talked about Bungie hiring practice when it came to hiring fans of the game:
“[With] gaming companies, one of the things that they could get away with is low pay, because you’re working on a game you love,” said McGowan. “And we totally took advantage of that at Bungie. We hired fans because fans would work for less.”
“When I came over from [The Pokémon Company] to Bungie, about one in three people asked me, ‘How much of a pay cut are they making you take?’ You don’t want that f***ing reputation… But when you only hire fans, you can get away with that.”
I certainly know of a number of Destiny fans that have been hired at Bungie to work on Marathon or Destiny 2 itself, as this is certainly a somewhat common practice. I hope they are actually getting paid what they deserve, but McGowan seems to suggest otherwise.
Another somewhat shocking reveal is that McGowan has said that when he worked there, Bungie at one point had 1,600 employees. Through departures and layoffs, CEO Pete Parsons said specifically that just 850 people were left working on a combination of Destiny 2 and Marathon. Destiny 2 has been plagued with a deluge of bugs in the wake of mass QA layoffs, and Marathon has been delayed once already and seems unlikely to hit a 2025 release target.
I feel for the employees. I do not feel for leadership. We’ll see where all this leads, but it doesn’t seem great. I’ve asked Bungie for comment and will update if I hear back.
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