UPDATE: A previous version of this article mentions Bobby Kotick was accused of mistreatment by several women. This is not the case and Game ZXC regrets the error.
Recent years have seen a marked rise in major allegations being levied against companies on the grounds of gender discrimination in the workplace, and the gaming industry has been no stranger to high-profile lawsuits and cases. With the sweeping claims levied against Riot Games staff, the entertainment world as a whole has seen sweeping allegations across many fronts. Now, with Sony previously seeing similar claims levied against the PlayStation developer, it is continuing to push for the lawsuit to be dismissed
Former Sony employee Emma Majo first filed a lawsuit against the PlayStation developer in late 2021, citing gender discrimination within Sony's workplace as well as her wrongful termination after speaking up about the issues. The bombshell lawsuit has only grown in intensity since then with several more women, including PlayStation veteran Marie Harrington, joining in to share their own stories of discrimination. Despite the growing arguments against the gaming juggernaut, however, Sony's lawyers are still lobbying for the case to be dismissed.
In a report from tech website Axios, Sony's lawyers recognize the seriousness of the allegations being levied against the massive video game company, but will continue to seek the dismissal of the lawsuit against Sony. According to the team of lawyers representing Sony in the lawsuit, Sony claims to have either "addressed the issue" in the time following many of the former employees' terminations or already has plans to address other issues raised in the lawsuit. The statement also reinforces that Sony "values its female employees" and promises to ensure better opportunities in the future for those female employees to speak up and make their voices heard.
While the accusations levied against Sony are severe with relation to mistreatment of women within the developer's workplace, they are the latest in a long string of similar accusations against some of gaming's biggest companies. League of Legends developer Riot Games saw itself in a several-years-long legal battle after a massive lawsuit was levied against the company for gender discrimination, which recently saw Riot settle for a whopping total of $100 million. The major suit against Riot was soon followed by similar charges against Ubisoft and most recently in the high-profile case against Activision Blizzard.
Sony's legal troubles relating to discrimination in the workplace are not the first time the company has been in legal hot water over the past few years. The creator of PlayStation has been the target of multiple lawsuits in recent years with Sony seeing lawsuits both related to controller stick drift for the PS5's DualSense controllers, as well as purchase restrictions related to the closure of the PlayStation Store on PS3 and Vita. Sony's gender discrimination lawsuit is the most recent chapter of a massive movement across the entertainment industry as a whole.