A court orders a player who harassed a game company employee to pay compensation of more than 67 million yen



Bungie , an American game software development company known for developing the ' Destiny ' and ' HALO ' series, has filed a lawsuit against Jesse James Comer for harassing and threatening employees and their families. We have succeeded in claiming damages of 500,000 dollars (about 67 million yen).

Bungie wins landmark harassment lawsuit against Destiny 2 troll - Polygon
https://www.polygon.com/23793493/bungie-destiny-2-harassment-lawsuit



Bungie Wins Lawsuit Against Destiny 2 Player Who Harassed Developer - IGN

https://www.ign.com/articles/bungie-wins-lawsuit-against-destiny-2-player-who-harassed-developer

It is said that the incident was triggered by the release of a collaboration video with black streamer Uhmaayyze in the project 'My D2 Story' held by Bungie in June 2022. Defendant Comer was an avid Destiny 2 player, but was enraged by the collaboration video and began harassing and threatening Dylan Gaffner, aka ' dmg04 ', who was Bungie's community manager at the time.




Commer sent multiple messages to Gaffner's personal phone, using the pseudonym 'Crave Lambston,' asking him to 'create an in-game option to kill only people of color.' Comer then sent racist voicemail and text messages to Gaffner's wife,

In addition, we are also doing a nuisance by sending delivery pizza to Mr. Gaffner's home, which should have been private, by cash on delivery. At that time, Defendant Comer instructed the pizza delivery person to ``knock the door strongly five times or more while raising a loud voice'' so as to scare Mr. Gaffner as much as possible. In addition, Defendant Comer, who was monitoring the delivery status, left a threatening call to Mr. Gaffner to 'enjoy the pizza.'

In addition, Defendant Comer left a loud and menacing voice message on Gaffner's phone shared by the game platform Steam's harassment group 'terr0rgang'.



Mr. Gaffner, who was afraid that his home address and phone number were being grasped by a malicious person, consulted Bungie. After that, Bungie contacted the local police and set up a security system against Mr. Gaffner and others. After that, Bungie conducted a joint investigation with the police, identified Defendant Comer, and made an arrest.

Comer himself did not appear at the trial on July 13, 2023. The courtordered Defendant Comer to pay damages of $ 489,435 (about 67.26 million yen) for the protection and support of Mr. Gaffner and others, the background investigation of the defendant, and the costs associated with the trial. In addition, Kammer said, 'In the future, I will not contact Bungie employees, whether they are streamers, artists, or other content creators, or harass or threaten any member of the Destiny 2 community. The order was given not to do so.

``The speed of legal development is incomparably slow compared to the evolution of technology and culture, but this trial has filled that gap,'' said Catherine Tewson, an attorney at Bungie. ``It is very important that the court has documented that the escalating threat and harm of online harassment can lead to real-world violence, such as swatting ,'' Tewson said.




According to the overseas media Polygon, the ruling against Comer this time is that the harassment and intimidation of employees will also damage the employer company, and the company will protect its employees and use its own resources to prevent harassment. It is important that identifying the perpetrator is judicially recognized.

In addition, lawyer Dylan Schmeier, who represented Bungie, said, ``Let me say 'congratulations' to the client who fought with us against this trial. We have set a precedent,” he said.




Mr. Gaffner said 'thank you' for this ruling.


Related Posts:

in Game, Posted by log1r_ut