Sony Interactive Entertainment Slapped With Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard seems to have opened a Pandora’s Box of gender-related issues within the gaming community. While Activision Blizzard has been getting all the flak recently due to the lawsuit, other video game companies have, at one time or another, also been involved in some type of sexual harassment or gender discrimination complaint, including Riot Games, Ubisoft, and more recently, Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Emma Majo, a former IT security analyst for PlayStation, filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this week for alleged gender discrimination and wrongful termination under the United States’ Equal Pay Act.

“Sony discriminates against female employees, including those who are female and those who identify as female, in compensation and promotion and subjects them to a work culture predominated by men,” read the lawsuit.

Majo claims that she held the same position within the company from 2015 to 2021, was repeatedly passed over for promotions, and was ignored by her manager who only responded to men. She says that female employees at PlayStation had difficulties being promoted at the same rate as their male counterparts.

Majo further claims that she was terminated earlier this year after she filed a gender discrimination complaint to the company. Management allegedly told her that she was being terminated due to the closure of an internal department even though she wasn’t part of that department.

She is also seeking the court’s approval to expand the lawsuit into a class action on behalf of other female employees who worked at PlayStation in the past.

The filing follows hot on the heels of an internal memo from Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan criticizing Activision Blizzard response to last week’s Wall Street Journal bombshell.