Eight more women, former and current employees at Sony PlayStation, have added their accounts of sexist treatment to a proposed class-action lawsuit against the gaming giant.

Why it matters: The new declarations add to former IT security analyst Emma Majo’s assertion that PlayStation, like many other game companies, has long had a workplace culture that is hostile to women.

• Majo filed a suit against PlayStation last November, not just for what she says is her own wrongful termination after complaining about sexism, but on behalf of all women who’ve worked for the company.

Sony denied Majo’s claims last month, asking a court to toss the lawsuit over the lack of specific facts.

• Majo "fails to identify a single policy, practice or procedure at [PlayStation] that allegedly formed the basis of any widespread intentional discrimination or had a discriminatory impact on women,” Sony’s lawyers wrote at the time.
• In response, Majo’s attorney yesterday filed statements from the eight women, including a current PlayStation employee.

The details: The women describe a range of behaviors across multiple U.S.-based PlayStation offices, including demeaning comments, unwelcome advances, a lack of attention paid to their work or ideas and, most frequently, a sense that it was harder for women to be promoted in the company.

• Marie Harrington, a veteran of Sony Online Entertainment and Sony PlayStation for more than 16 years, cited a lack of women considered for senior roles during “calibration sessions.” During one session, she said, only four women were considered for promotions, compared to nearly 70 men. She described hearing comments about female candidates’ family lives that weren’t made about male candidates.
• In a 2018 email to superiors regarding bullying by men at the company, Harrington linked to a New York Times article about women revolting against toxic males at Nike, asking, “Can we address this before PlayStation has its own national news article?”
• Another woman cited a third-party study that found a “great imbalance in terms of employee distribution” in her team.

“I believe Sony is not equipped to appropriately handle toxic environments,” wrote Kara Johnson, a former program manager, in her statement.

• She noted she was aware of 10 women who’d left her office in Rancho Bernardo, California, in the four months preceding her departure, a sign to her of systemic problems.
• Her declaration includes a letter she shared with female employees when she left the company in January 2021, citing repeated attempts to notify superiors about gender bias, alleged discrimination against pregnant women and resistance from a senior man in HR to act on these accounts.

Sony did not reply to a request for comment about the new assertions by press time.

What’s next: Yesterday’s filing met a deadline for replies to Sony’s attempt to drop the suit.

• A hearing on that request won’t happen until next month, at the earliest.

Nintendo has postponed the release of the Switch game Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp, which depicts cartoonish tank warfare and the siege of cities.

Driving the news: The game doesn't look realistic, but its visual themes and gameplay evoke the real mechanized combat happening now as Russia escalates its invasion of Ukraine.

What they're saying: "In light of recent world events, we have made the decision to delay Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, which was originally scheduled to release on Nintendo Switch on April 8th," Nintendo tweeted this morning.

• The company did not refer specifically to the invasion.
• It has not provided a new release date.

Between the lines: Advance Wars titles are turn-based strategy games that play a bit like chess, with players directing tanks, artillery and platoons of troops across fields and mountains, with the goal of seizing cities and bases.

• The new release, which remakes two earlier Advance Wars games from more than a decade ago, includes factions that evoke real-world countries, including one bearded commander whose visual design looks Russian.

President Biden issued a wide-ranging executive order today for multiple government agencies to develop policy recommendations on digital assets and cryptocurrencies, Axios' Ryan Lawler reports.

Why it matters: The order is an acknowledgment that crypto is here to stay and moves the government one step closer to a policy framework that would legitimize — and regulate — its use in the U.S.

• The Treasury Department is expected to come up with recommendations addressing consumer and investor protections.
• Other agencies will probe crypto risks, and the Federal Reserve has been tapped to research the possible development of a U.S. central bank digital currency.

Stephen's thought bubble: Gaming and crypto are increasingly intertwined through billions of dollars of investment into crypto game projects. There's also the continued push by outsiders — and some insiders — to implement blockchain-based NFTs into games.

• The order obviously doesn't address gamer and game-maker concerns that NFTs ruin the fun of games.
• But it does charge agencies to investigate crypto's environmental aspect and the propensity for fraud or illicit use of the tech (think: money-laundering).

Go deeper: White House issues executive order on regulating cryptocurrencies

🚫 An Activision Blizzard executive has been disinvited from a panel at this weekend's SXSW festival due to the company's sexual harassment scandals, the Washington Post reports.

👩🏻‍⚖️ A Dutch court has overturned a €10 million (approximately $11 million) fine against EA, saying the FIFA maker's Ultimate Team packs did not break the country's gambling laws, Eurogamer reports.

📆 Warner Bros.' next big superhero game, Gotham Knights, is set for an Oct. 25 release. The game focuses on Batman's allies, letting players control Nightwing, Batgirl and others.

🎸 The fictional video game depicted in the music video for 1999's Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Californication" has been turned into a playable game, PC Gamer reports.

🩱 Pro wrestlers keep cosplaying as video game characters. At an All Elite Wrestling event this past weekend, one entered the ring dressed as Mortal Kombat's Jade (she won her match), another as Halo's Master Chief (he lost his). See pics here.

Mabel Addis Was The First Video Games Writer You’ve Never Heard Of [Khee Hoon Chan, The Gamer]

Back when video games had yet to seep into public consciousness in 1964, there was a text-based game called The Sumerian Game, a text-based economic simulator about managing your resources as the rulers of Lagash in Sumer. It was also written and designed by Mabel Addis, a fourth-grade teacher who wanted to impart the basics of economic theory to her class.

But it’s a pity that few have heard of her: she’s also widely considered as the first female video game designer, as well as the very first video game narrative designer of any gender, pioneering several features—such including narrative elements, cutscenes and even content patches— that can still be seen in modern titles.

Ubisoft’s big, new expansion for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, titled Dawn of Ragnarok, is beautiful, fun but simultaneously disappointing to your resident AC-addicted newsletter writer.

My impressions: I cleared the main story and much of the side adventures in about 15 hours, repeatedly hoping I was playing something a bit different.

What it is: An extension of Valhalla’s already peripheral playable Norse mythology sections. However, you’re not Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s main Viking protagonist Eivor in 10th century England, you are Norse god Odin, adventuring in magical realms.

• Dawn brings Odin to the besieged dwarven realm of Svartalfheim and gives Odin an enjoyable set of superpowers to use to fight otherworldly beings and explore exotic locations.

What I wished it was: An expansion that plays more with Assassin’s Creed’s layers of history or significantly advances the plot or character development of the main game.

• Valhalla’s prior two paid expansions have not done that, leaving each new adventure feeling disconnected for better or, in my case, for worse.

The bottom line: Dawn of Ragnarok is fine but not for me.