Following the leak of an internal email from Jim Ryan to all employees, in which Ryan upset a large number of employees for what many saw as a trivialization of an issue which directly affects many PlayStation employees, another internal email has leaked out revealing what Sony is doing in response.
According to an internal email from Insomniac chief executive officer Ted Price via The Launcher, the Ratchet & Clank studio plans to donate $50,000 to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, (WRRAP).
Price explained that Sony intends to match the donation, and whatever individual donations employees make, so long as it goes through its PlayStation Cares program.
More interesting is that Price also says Insomniac will work with Sony to create a new policy to aid those who may have to travel to a different state for reproductive care.
Regarding all of this however, Insomniac and its employees are not allowed to publicly acknowledge the donations, and must not acknowledge Sony or Insomniac when publicly discussing the WRRAP.
According to the report, Insomniac employees – Price included – fought Sony on this point, as the studio felt it should release a statement.
The studio also sent a sizeable document to head of PlayStation Studios Herman Hulst, which urged leadership to “do better by employees who are directly affected.”
No statement, at least for now, will come out of Insomniac however. Employees asked if it was an encroachment on the company’s freedom of speech.
“There would be material repercussions for us as a wholly owned subsidiary…Among other things, any progress that we might make in helping change Sony Interactive Entertainment’s approach would be stopped dead in its tracks…
We’d also probably be severely restricted from doing important public-facing work in the future…Sony Interactive Entertainment will not approve any statements from any studio on the topic of reproductive rights. We fought hard for this and we did not win…
As for out freedom of speech goes, while we do have a lot of autonomy that often gets taken for granted, there are times where we need to acknowledge we’re part of a larger organization.
For the most part our ability to tweet has been unfettered. However there are rare times when we’re in opposition (like this week) and SIE will have the final say.”
Bungie, who PlayStation is in the process of acquiring, were the first studio to release a public statement following the U.S Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked out.
Source – [The Launcher]