Bungie has been on a legal tear lately, mainly suing cheaters and at one point, a guy who filed illegal YouTube copyright claims under their name. But now, a new judgement has been won against a specific individual who harassed and terrorized a prominent Destiny 2 community manager.
The bizarre story begins when the community manager (I won’t name them here, but most players know who it is) featured a black creator, Uhmaayyze, as part of a Bungie spotlight of their community members.
The offending individual, named as Jesse James Comer, then proceeded to somehow acquire the community manager’s phone number and home address. He began leaving racist, profanity-laden voicemails on both the community manager’s phone and somehow his wife’s phone, and sending texts of the same nature. Then, he ordered Domino’s Pizza to their house, told the delivery driver to bang on the door loudly (the story being that the customer was wearing headphones), and made the order cash on delivery.
The fact that he was now sending actual things to their house made them fear for their safety, as that could easily then escalate into something like SWATing if that information was known by this unstable individual, or someone actually showing up to their house in person.
Bungie’s response to this was to send out “executive protection” within an hour of the pizza incident and notified local police. Then, the investigation began to uncover who was behind it, and we ended up at this case which resulted in a default judgement of $489,435.52.
There’s a lengthy thread from lawyer Kathryn Tewson about not just the win, but why the win was so important, and what it establishes about this kind of harassment, which actually includes recognition of a new tort.
“By recognizing a new tort based on the Washington criminal statutes outlawing cyber and telephone harassment, the Court has created a path for those with the resources to identify stochastic terrorists and hold them accountable to do exactly that and recover their costs in court,” Tewson said.
The result has been met with high praise from both Bungie employees celebrating the win, but also (normal) community members who believe this judgement is exactly what the harasser deserves. The community manager has since left Bungie, but expressed his thanks for Tewson’s help as well.
The hope here is that with recognition of real-word consequences, including the unmasking of an anonymous identity and massive financial loss, that less of this behavior happens among gaming communities. In this case, a resolution was found, but the goal is that this never occurs in the first place.
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