Former Quantic Dream Employees Call Workplace "Toxic", "Sexist"

I think the word that best sums up David Cage’s studio Quantic Dream would be “divisive." The guy’s made a handful of games, such as Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and the upcoming Detroit: Become Human, and they all have a few things in common. They’re ambitious and story-driven, they tend to have multiple branching paths, they’re not afraid (if not really capable) of tackling big important issues, but most importantly, they’re all pretentious up the wazoo.

But think what you want about David Cage (and chances are, you do), but you can’t deny the dude is confrontational. Which is why, when it came out that five former employees have filed an official complaint against the company for promoting degrading, sexist, and racist behavior internally, you can expect his reaction was anything less than calm and controlled.

To be fair, the allegations (which were first filed in spring of 2017 but are only coming public now) are quite atrocious. Apparently, the five complainers submitted about 600 photoshopped images of various employs that were homophobic, sexist, and racist, which were apparently displayed and circulated around the office. Which, as you can probably imagine, does not make for a safe, comfortable workplace environment.

And while the photoshops were bad, the five employees pointed out that they weren’t filing the complaint because of them specifically: rather, they said those photoshops were a result of the toxic work environment everyone had suffered through. They pointed to things like long work weeks, sexual misconduct at parties, and occasional racism—such as asking colored co-workers if they were related to known criminals—as the real problem.

All of which, Mr. Cage has vehemently denied. Speaking to Eurogamer, he said this:
 

“You want to talk about homophobia? 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.”

And Co-CEO Guillaume de Fondumiere had this to say to Kotaku:
 

“QD categorically denies the allegations. As for myself, I’m furious and outraged by these accusations, which I take very seriously. And I will take all possible legal actions to defend my honor.”

Strong words, but the facts aren’t actually on their side. Quantic Dream has a known high turnover rate, sitting at about 50 percent from last year, and most reasons cited were depression and burnout. Plus, it seems very reasonable to me that a man as… let’s say opinionated as David Cage might not have a good filter for his voice or opinions.

Still, until more stories come out from other employees either verifying or denying the information, we might not ever know for sure. But I’ll keep you all posted.