Designer-gay files action against Microsoft

Game designer with untraditional sexual orientation sued Microsoft company, The Daily Mail reports. 38-year-old Jamie Durrant demands to pay 45 thousand pounds sterling (more than 66 thousand dollars) as a compensation for moral and material damage. According to the designer colleagues repeatedly insulted him because of him being a homosexual. Durrant notes that he received notes and e-mails with offensive content. In particular, they called him Fag Boy Jim. The first letters he began to receive in January last year. Because of regular insults, he fell into depression. By this reason, he could not work for seven months. The designer demands to compensate not only for moral damage, but also to indemnify for the time when he was in depression.
According to Durrant, he complained to the heads of personnel department, but they never had been able to influence the situation. Initially, he agreed not to lodge a complaint, in order not to flair up tensions in the staff. Later Durrant was asked to sign a document indicating that his problem is solved and he has no claims to the leadership, but the designer refused. The developer claims that the leadership has shown indifference to his complaints.
Microsoft representatives have not yet commented on the situation. We add that Jamie Durrant is a member of Lionhead Studios, which is owned by Microsoft. According to journalists, he is working in this company for 11 years. Durrant took part in the development of both parts of role-playing game Fable.
Frankly speaking, it is not the first time when Microsoft was accused of intolerance towards people with untraditional sexual orientation. In February, the company has blocked the account of a lesbian in Xbox Live, to whom other users complained. The girl was accused with violating the rules of the network service use. Microsoft stated that users have no right to speak openly about their sexual orientation. In 2008, the user theGAYERgamer was banned for using the word “gay” in his nickname. Representatives of Microsoft hope that soon they will be able to find a way that would allow gamers to indicate their orientation without offending other users.