In 2004, AbleGamers was established as a nonprofit dedicated to elevating disabled voices and improving accessibility in the gaming industry. For approximately 20 years, the organization has presented talks across industry events, raised millions through annual charity events, and acted as a consistent resource for developers and players alike. Throughout its existence, video game accessibility and AbleGamers became synonymous, and reporters, developers, and the public viewed them as an integral source of advancing accessibility.

Founded by Mark Barlet, the organization worked with studios like Xbox to create the Xbox Adaptive Controller, PlayStation to create the Access Controller, and even paired with Bungie for exclusive merchandise. Aside from industry partnerships, AbleGamers purports to act as consultants with developers to teach about the implementation of accessibility options in games.

However, roughly 20 years after its founding, new reports from former employees and members of the accessibility community describe abuse, financial mismanagement from leadership, and a board that failed to protect its employees.

According to the corroborated account of a former employee who wished to remain anonymous, Barlet’s behavior became concerning a few years after the employee joined the organization. Throughout their approximately 10 year employment with the charity, the source describes several instances of sexist and emotionally abusive comments directed toward them.

“He kept telling me I was HR for the charity because I’m a woman,” the source said. “At this time, I was the only woman in the charity. He then sent me to work on a literal HR case that I now know was really illegal of me because I didn’t have those credentials.”

The source claims that Barlet occasionally made light of the aforementioned HR case for several weeks, causing numerous employees to feel uncomfortable. According to the source, Barlet would periodically tell the source she was HR because she “was the woman of the group.”

They described incidents including overhearing racist remarks about other employees, a time when they felt they had to verbally break up a conflict between Barlet and another coworker, and witnessing a number of inappropriate comments from Barlet such as, “We need to get the most f***ed up disabled person to be on our marketing, the one with real multiple disabilities.” The source notes that in this particular instance, Barlet proceeded to make obscene gestures, mocking individuals with physical disabilities.

“During an all-hands internal meeting, I was two months postpartum, and before the meeting, everyone was either in call or in the conference room physically, and he said my jugs had gotten so big that he wouldn’t know how to handle them,” the source said. “About a week later, we were walking past each other, and he went up to me with his hands outstretched hovering over my [chest] and said ‘Haha, they’re so big, I wouldn’t know how to handle them because I’m gay.’”