Super Free Games Faces Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
Former Super Free Games (Word Collect) employee Haley Bowman (Sonos) filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco Superior Court on the 11th of May, 2023 against the company for gender discrimination, unequal pay and being terminated while pregnant.
Super Free Games, formerly known as Super Lucky Games is a word and trivia game developer owned by the Stillfront Group and based in California with global remote employees, mostly across America. Although their careers page boasts a "flat management model" and insists on valuing a work-life balance, Bowman's case alleges "cronyistic" hiring practices, backed up by an anonymous former employee's review on Glassdoor.
In 2022, a Marketing Department Reduction in Force Committee was established at SFG and asked Bowman to leave her managerial marketing position for a position with a 20-26% pay cut in production on the grounds that she "had poor communication issues and created a level of mistrust with UA [the User Acquisition Team]". In her case, Bowman has said that there were no issues between her and UA. When she refused to take the cut and role change, she was terminated two months into a pregnancy she alleges SFG knew about and that her firing was falsely presented as a workforce reduction externally.
In addition to this, the lawsuit alleges an "unmistakable bias" against women, who make up less than a third of SFG, often being excluded from important meetings and social opportunities. Bowman also was not consulted on the marketing decisions that were key to her role in the Marketing division. SFG have not made any statements regarding the case as of two weeks after the filing.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/super-free-games-receives-lawsuit-that-alleges-biases-against-women
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Super-Free-Games-RVW55119549.htm
(originally published as part of Girl Games Network #2 on 31/5/2023)
