Feb 20, 2025 10:30:00

'Are you still wearing your pajamas?' 'I can't believe I'm talking to you in bed' - Sexual harassment emails and call records to female employees that were the reason why Sony fired the game director who worked on Destiny and Halo are made public

Sony has been sued by veteran developer Christopher Barrett, who served as game director at

Bungie , a game studio under Sony's umbrella, for firing him. In the lawsuit, Barrett claims that Sony fired him because it did not want to pay him a large salary. However, Sony has released a number of sexually harassing emails that Barrett sent to female employees, claiming that the reason for his firing was sexual harassment.

Sony pushes back hard against Bungie veteran's wrongful termination lawsuit
https://www.gamefile.news/p/sony-bungie-christopher-barrett-lawsuit-response

Ex-Bungie Dev's Creepy Texts To Women Released In Court Case
https://kotaku.com/bungie-ex-marathon-christopher-barrett-lawsuit-texts-1851765546

In March 2024, Barrett, who was Bungie's executive creative director at the time, was fired after an internal investigation found that he had 'sent inappropriate and offensive messages' to several female employees. Dissatisfied with this, Barrett filed a lawsuit against Bungie's parent company, Sony, in December 2024.

In the lawsuit, Barrett claims that he was not fired following an internal investigation, that he had not engaged in any illegal conduct that warranted his dismissal, and that his firing was part of a scheme by Sony to avoid paying him more than $40 million in compensation as a result of Sony's acquisition of Bungie in 2022.

Sony acquires Bungie, developer of Destiny 2, for over 400 billion yen - GIGAZINE

In response, Sony filed 128 pages of court documents in the third week of February 2025, disclosing part of its internal investigation. The documents included nine emails that Barrett allegedly sent to female employees, and Sony's lawyers argued that they 'show a pattern of misconduct by Barrett.'

In one email to one female employee, Barrett asked, 'Are you still wearing your pajamas?' and 'Like a button-down top and bottom? Sweatpants? Lululemon ?'

Barrett called another female employee his 'Holy Grail' and wrote, 'I'm not trying to woo you. I don't want you to feel that way.' The female employee responded by saying, 'My boyfriend treats me really well,' to which Barrett replied, 'I hope that's the case. If not, I'll woo you.'

In addition, a female employee at Bungie said that Barrett would call her late at night while drunk. Even when the female employee asked him to respect her privacy, he would talk to her on FaceTime for hours. He also said, 'I can't believe I'm lying in bed talking to you.' The victim's employee apparently immediately hung up the phone when he said this to her.

After the sexual harassment emails were revealed, Barrett's lawyers issued a statement saying, 'Sony has dishonestly cherry-picked text messages and conversations and made unsubstantiated, categorical statements to disparage Christopher and justify its termination in order to withhold what is owed him under his employment contract. Sony's evidence clearly does not include the full text of the emails or phone calls, and Sony's submissions fail to provide any legitimate legal or factual basis for firing Christopher.'