screenwriter Chris Avellone claims to have reached an agreement with his accusers

This is the culmination of a case which, in the summer of 2020, was the starting point for a wave of testimonies denouncing sexual violence in the video game industry: Saturday March 25, American screenwriter Chris Avellone has published on his blog a message explaining that he had reached an agreement in the context of the complaint he had filed against two women, Karissa Barrows and Kelly Bristol, who accused him of sexual assault.

At the time, on June 20, M^me Barrows had explained on Twitter that she had been drunk and then sexually assaulted by Mr. Avellone, during a professional convention devoted to video games. Supported by M^me Bristol, her story had then provoked an unprecedented wave of denunciations, encouraging many women in the industry to speak up. “He took my face and started kissing mehad then told the young woman to the specialized information site Kotaku. The only thing I remember clearly is that he started putting his hand down my pants. I told him that was not a good idea. »

Wave of testimonials

Chris Avellone, who filed the complaint first time in 2020 (unsuccessfully) against M^me Barrows and M.^me Bristol, then a second time in 2022assured in his blog post that “The parties had reached an agreement”evoking the “payment of a seven-figure sum intended to repay” his attorney fees. In the same message, Mr. Avellone issues a statement signed by Karissa Barrows and Kelly Bristol, in which they retract their past statements and clear Mr. Avellone of any wrongdoing, claiming that their “words have been misinterpreted”.

In June 2020, Karissa Barrows’ account of Chris Avellone’s behavior was instrumental in getting dozens of other women to speak out about sexist and sexual assault in the video game industry. They had, in the same way, denounced on Twitter the abusive behavior of colleagues and male colleagues.

In particular, several Ubisoft employees were targeted,American agency Bloomberg having thus revealed, on June 26, the layoff of two managers of the editorial team of the French company. 1^er July, an investigation of Release about them had ended up splashing Serge Hascoët, the number two of the company, who had finally resigned on July 11 of the same year.