Ever since the initial lawsuit was filed in the summer, Activision’s reputation has only grown more and more toxic. Following the allegations of harassment, abuse, and discrimination, the general public and the company’s own employees are calling for the removal of CEO Bobby Kotick, and even Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have criticized Activision and its lack of action. However, now Sony has found itself being accused of more or less the same thing that Activision is in trouble for.
According to Axios, a former IT security analyst, Emma Majo, has filed a lawsuit against Sony in California on Monday. The suit alleges that the company is not only guilty of gender discrimination, specifically towards women employees, but also for wrongfully firing Majo after she spoke up about said discrimination.
Furthermore, the suit reads that Sony has violated the United States’ Equal Pay Act, discriminating against all female employees in compensation and promotion. Essentially, it doesn’t pay women as well as men and ignores them in favor of promoting their male co-workers. Majo even claims to have been ignored by a manager who only ever responded to men, was regularly passed over for promotions (which she says was a common occurrence with other female employees) and was fired for submitting a gender bias complaint to the company.
She notes in the lawsuit that the reason Sony gave for her termination was because of the closure of an internal department, but Majo’s counterargument is that she never worked in that department to begin with. Sony representatives have yet to provide an official statement on the allegations. Majo is also seeking court approval to expand the suit into a class action lawsuit on behalf of women who have worked for the PlayStation company over the last few years.
This is unfortunately not a rare occurrence within the industry. Only last year, Ubisoft was hit with very similar allegations. While several high-ranking employees accused of harassment and abuse did leave the company as part of the fallout, many employees believe Ubisoft has done very little since then to address the complaints. Earlier this month, the employee-led organization ABetterUbisoft stated that Ubisoft had failed to meet any of its demands and published a petition anyone could sign, one Ubisoft seems to have yet to respond to, at least publicly.
In 2019, Riot Games was also accused of gender discrimination, with CEO Nicolo Laurent in particular allegedly responsible for harassing women employees and making unwanted sexual advances. Some are keen to remind others following the success of the League of Legends Netflix show Arcane.
Source: Axios