Lionhead Studios graphic designer sues Microsoft for harassment

I smell bullshit, i mean as soon as Microsoft buys them out all of the sudden he gets the nickname "fag boy jim" it sounds pretty convenient to me.

I have worked in the industry for over a decade and the idea that a modern studio of a couple of hundred people working in all disciplines would recruit solely from the Maths Club, The Chess Club and the RPG Club is frankly as outdated as harassing Gay guys because they happen to be Gay.

Games studios - especially in the UK where Ethnic Minorities are still true minorities - are mostly a collection of thirty-something white males. While great strides have been taken in making the workplaces in the industry more welcoming to females, not much has been done to integrate openly homosexual people.

We're gamers, first and foremost. A lot of us grew up calling things 'teh ghey' too.

If this guy was harassed in a sustained and organized manner - especially if it went beyond verbal and was written into game builds or photoshopped jokes - then MS ought to have stopped it, because their discipline leads and producers ought to have been aware of it. Once he complained to the HR department, it ought to have been resolved VERY quickly - even if the XBOX LIVE team had no specific policy. For god's sake - how long does it take a company based in Washington to phone up a lawyer and gin up an anti-harassment section to the employment contract? They could use the same guy who wrote the language into the XBOX LIVE EULA and TOS...

Stress is very real - and working in the industry is ALREADY more stressful than the average workplace. Throw in sexual discrimination and the guy has an argument.

As some have said, it's a shame that this has undoubtedly cost him his career in the Games Industry. Word of mouth will ensure that nobody hires him - simply because he'll be seen as a troublemaker.

I met jamie when I was a temporary tester at LH on the original Black & White about 9 years ago. He was a really nice guy, like many who were there around that time he was just so damn talented and good at what he did. Hope this issue gets sorted soon.

Haha, so the guy found a way to screw MS out of a load of money.

Being a minority and playing victim is a great way to nab an early retirement.

This is America after all, the litigation nation, why work, when you can sue?

"Ladies are bad". LOL!

Seriously, if you're gonna be gay, you need to grow a thicker skin. And (obviously) a creepy mustache.

MS is packed full of gays. I've never worked at any company that had such a high ratio of gays working for it as MS does. Not only is the company very gay friendly, they push it to the point where I have seen numerous gays get permanent positions and promotions over better employees who were straight.

I have a hard time believing that MS is at fault in any way in this.

I find it odd that a company as massive as Microsoft wouldn't have an explicit policy in place regarding harassment based on sexual orientation. If they don't, hopefully they'll fix that problem quickly if they want to attract quality employees from all backgrounds. If the guy was genuinely being harassed, then something should have been done about it the moment he asked for it to stop.

That being stated, there may be more to this story if we know the context of the alleged harassment. In my last job, I was the token gay guy. I was such good friends with all of my co-workers and bosses, though, that we constantly teased each other about anything and everything, including my sexual orientation. If anyone from other teams would have overheard us, they probably thought I was being harassed mercilessly.

On the contrary, though, I was probably laughing right along with them and their bad puns, lewd comments and jokes filled with innuendo.

For me, it was all about context. None of my co-workers ever meant any harm or had any ill will towads me. They were just making fun of me just as much as I would make fun of them. So what would have easily been termed "harassment" based on our HR policies was nothing more than a fun day at work for me. Then again, it takes a lot to offend me, but it was well known amongst my peers and bosses that if I ever had a problem, I would let them know. I just never did, because no one ever said anything with malicious intent towards me.

So in this case, if the context indicates there was malicious intent behind the harassment and/or he asked for it to stop and it never did, then I hope the guy has his day in court and is compensated fairly by Microsoft for it. Still, though, I'd be interested to know the true context of the comments made towards him.

"Anxiety and Depression"??? Boo-fucking-hoo!!

If I didn't go to work all the days, I had Anxiety and Depression, I'd have a good portion of my year, off... Suck it up.

Callous as this may sound, I don't believe one single word this guy says. And second off, I'm a graphic artist, myself. Where I work, I'm surrounded by gay people, who constantly make fun of straight people, because the gays in the office outnumber the straights, 8 to 1.

Sorry. No sympathy here... Discrimination is a 2-way street.

Here, here Diskoboy7 is right.

It's reverse discrimination, we didn't know what he did. He could have been a jerk and was asking for it. He's probably just out to make a quick buck.

People need to grow up and not act like sissies and go run and complain everytime someone calls them names (seriously this guy got depressed cause someone said 'ladies are bad'?)

I will agree based on the fact that we do not know all the circumstances surrounding his case, we have no idea of knowing whether or not the charges against Microsoft are something dreamt up. Based on the discrimination I've witnessed even in 'tolerant' South Florida, it would not surprise me if those charges were true. Excluding that admitted conjecture, I find that the concept of giving businesses the right to discriminatory practices is objectionable beyond the kneejerk accusation of cognitive dissonance. I fully understand the argument behind government being non-intrusive in the interest of free enterprise, but I also disagree that left on its own, the natural, punitive consequences would take care of the issue of discrimination. The time necessary for those changes to take place through a hands-off approach extend beyond one or two generations, and just is not fair to expect given the disproportionate time those odds were stacked in favor of the majority. There are inherited social advantages for the dominant majority and disadvantages for the minority. The advantages of 'masculinity' and 'whiteness' are consciously and subconsciously experienced by those who can meet the criteria. It is mimicked often by those who do not specifically meet the criteria. The shared privilege of the majority continues to be enabled as a subtext to the seemingly noble diatribes of embracing the 'fairness' of autonomy that never existed in the first place.