Le Monde report: Abusive Practices, Unhealthy Studio Culture at Quantum Dream

[johnhoftb]

This is the company behind Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and the upcoming Detroit: Beyond Human.

http://www.lemonde.fr/acces-restrein...6_4408996.html

Using a Eurogamer report because original article is in French.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...studio-culture

Three separate French reports published this afternoon level serious allegations of unhealthy studio culture at Quantic Dream, developer of Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and the upcoming PlayStation 4 game Detroit: Become Human.

Quantic Dream leaders David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière are accused of inappropriate behaviour, overworking staff and colluding in - or at least turning a blind eye to - a schoolboy culture involving sexist and racist jokes.

For their part, Cage and de Fondaumière fiercely deny all allegations, saying they are "very surprised" and "shocked" by the "rantings" of former employees, according to Le Monde's report.

One particular area of contention is a cache of some 600 controversial photoshopped images dating back to 2013. Canard PC's report has a header image with some of the photoshopped pictures in. Mediapart's is the third report.

"The most shocking [images] present Quantic Dream's collaborators in sexual positions, adorned with homophobic or sexist slurs, or even made up to look like Nazis," said Le Monde's report, translated by Eurogamer.

The photoshopped images were apparently sent in group emails around the company, including to recipients Cage and de Fondaumière. But it was only in early 2017, when the company's IT manager was the subject of a photoshopped image, the full cache was found and complaints made. Cage and de Fondaumière claimed not to have seen the worst images before then, only ones which "were funny or more or less amusing".

But this cache of controversial images became the jumping off point for a deeper look at life at Quantic Dream - a studio of 180 people, 83 per cent of which are apparently male, and where there is reportedly a picture of a penis with farting testes on the wall.

Cage, particularly, is painted as a figure hard to work with. He is apparently ironically nicknamed "Papa", "God" and "Sun King" for his autocratic approach to working, for demanding long hours and for not listening to others.

Cage is also accused of a lack of consideration for female colleagues, and of making insistent dirty jokes, smutty remarks in the presence of his wife, and inappropriate remarks about actresses in his games.

"David Cage has a very particular viewpoint on how he runs his studio, which in his own words he sees as a private, or a semi-private, space," said one former employee. "He feels he has the right to say whatever he wants, it's his place."

Others have apparently witnessed homophobic or racist jokes. One incident involved a burglary caught on CCTV. After watching, Cage allegedly asked an employee of Tunisian origin, "Is that a cousin of yours?"

Cage said the allegations were "ridiculous, absurd and grotesque".

"You want to talk about homophobia?" he said. "I work with Ellen Page, who fights for LGBT rights. You want to talk about racism? I work with Jesse Williams, who fights for civil rights in the USA... Judge me by my work."

Quantic co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumière is also targeted by former employees for sleazy behaviour, such as allegedly hitting on staff at parties. "I will be extremely clear: it's absolutely false," responded de Fondaumière. "None of any of this happened at any evening event."

The allegations will undermine the upcoming release of Detroit: Become Human, a game which has already stirred high profile controversy for a sequence involving domestic and child abuse.

Detroit: Become Human is due for release this spring.

And it gets even better: The guy behind the original article tweeted out Sony blacklisted him and Le Monde after this article.

https://twitter.com/Willvs/status/952933508678324224

- - - Updated - - -

And before you ask, yes, I misspelled the company's name in the title.

[Verdugo]

David Cage certainly has ..."unique"... opinion about women if his "games" are anything to go by.

[Tech614]

Yawn.

The neogaf/resetera echo chamber never ends(not mentioned in the post but we all know where you learned about this and decided to post it John). Just like the fake accusation about sexual harrassment at ND nothing will come of this. The sooner people stop thinking they're political activists in the gaming industry the better. They don't seem to have a problem with buying hardware made in borderline slavery conditions in China but God Forbid some game dev make an inappropriate joke in the office.

Tell me more about first world problems, I still won't care. Maybe if they stopped caring about every small injustice in the world they could beat the tutorial level of cuphead.

[dope_danny]

While outside hiveminds like resetera innocent until proven guilty still exists if any dev turned out to be a creeper i would not at all be surprised if "da'veed" would be.

[Deleted]

Yawn.

The neogaf/resetera echo chamber never ends(not mentioned in the post but we all know where you learned about this and decided to post it John). Just like the fake accusation about sexual harrassment at ND nothing will come of this. The sooner people stop thinking they're political activists in the gaming industry the better. They don't seem to have a problem with buying hardware made in borderline slavery conditions in China but God Forbid some game dev make an inappropriate joke in the office.

Tell me more about first world problems, I still won't care. Maybe if they stopped caring about every small injustice in the world they could beat the tutorial level of cuphead.

you just killed this thread, well done sir.

a lot of the yappies, especially the hacks that call themselves "journalists" quickly forget that sour employees and bad expieriences can come from any workplace and they're very frequent. in most cases, these statements are either false or biased. besides, ranting about 'bad jokes and slurs' is really fucking stupid. if nobody is harmed by it, who the hell cares? do we want to censor everyone and their workplace now?

and besides, lets not pretend the working conditions at places like polygon ign are all pristine and saintly. wasn't there some fiasco about sexual misconduct at ign lately?

making games is hard, people have to work a lot of hours, sometimes those people like to make jokes or comments about their asses. get the fuck over it and move on

[Mister Cheese]

Smells like bullshit. And it seems like normal workplace bullshit to me. Off color jokes are normal. Are you really going to tell me that you can no longer make jokes in a workplace any longer? Did he grab someone by the pussy? Nobody has alleged that actually.

[Verdugo]

Smells like bullshit.

Smells like Cage actualy, guy is a pretentious creepy twat that was gathering Ellen Pages photos inside a creepy notebook and showing it to her.

[Dispraise]

Smells like Cage actualy, guy is a pretentious creepy twat that was gathering Ellen Pages photos inside a creepy notebook and showing it to her.

As opposed to a non-creepy notebook filled with Ellen Page photos.

[ramjb]

As opposed to a non-creepy notebook filled with Ellen Page photos.

I know a lesbian who has one of those.

[ro9ue]

I really don't respect any organization in games journalism enough to even bother to read the articles.

[Dispraise]

I know a lesbian who has one of those.

Is it Ellen Page?

[Mormolyce]

Sounds like the typical boy's club antics you find in these kinds of workplaces a lot of the time.

Not really surprising, but I imagine most places like that are going to be dragged into the 21st Century sooner or later, if they haven't already.

I know a lesbian who has one of those.

I imagine half the lesbian community does.

[Verdugo]

As opposed to a non-creepy notebook filled with Ellen Page photos.

You dont gather photos of a celebrity while she was a child and pass as a mentaly healthy individual.

Also he kept her naked model ingame even though she was protesting.

[Wondercrab]

David Cage is an insensitive weirdo? Colour me shocked!

And wow, that quote about working with gay people and civil rights activists. It's so perfectly Cage.

You dont gather photos of a celebrity while she was a child and pass as a mentaly healthy individual.

Let's not forget subsequently modelling a detailed nude version of her into your game without her knowledge or consent.

[digichi]

Article really sterilizes a lot of information that could be described as nerd-humour you share between a close group of friends. (Dumb hitler jokes, calling someone gey, dumb skin colour jokes.) Obviously, to someone else looking in, it sounds pretty bad when described. It's not something you want to be saying to strangers.

But regardless of that, it could be likely he is stepping over the line in some of these areas/taking it too far. Honestly this is the first i've heard of this guy and this article makes it very hard to go off anything ...

--
going off the comments, it seems the guy might have a few problems, lol..

[Dispraise]

You dont gather photos of a celebrity while she was a child and pass as a mentaly healthy individual.

Also he kept her naked model ingame even though she was protesting.

To be entirely fair, she looks basically the same now as she did when she was 13 years old.

Wait no, that made it worse.

[Verdugo]

To be entirely fair, she looks basically the same now as she did when she was 13 years old.

Wait no, that made it worse.

Also dont forget that his favourite moment in Omikron is when you as a player (yes, player is character in this game) possess someone and then pork his wife.

Its almost scary how you can use his "games" as his psychological profile.

[Morally Grey Storm]

you have to ask someone's consent in order to make his/her gamemodel?
what?
Maybe even ask that certain someone about it's preferred pronouns?