Development studio Quantic Dream, creators of PlayStation exclusives such as Heavy Rain and the recent top seller Detroit: Become Human, has apparently lost a court case against a former employee. According to the report, the victim in the case quit after offensive Photoshopped images of employees were being circulated at the studio. Eventually, the images were mentioned following a joint investigation of a toxic workplace culture. The investigation was undertaken by French journalists over at Le Monde, Canard PC, and Mediapart and was published in January 2018. The developer issued and official statement, in response to these reports.
The accusations were directed at Quantic Dream leaders David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière, describing inappropriate behavior, overworking the staff, and perpetuating a kind of schoolboy culture, which mostly consisted of sexist and racist jokes. Canard PC’s report [NSFW] offered examples of this.
Quantic Dream boss David Cage expressed that he was “shocked” by the allegations, after which he took to Twitter declaring that accusations coming from the staff were “slanderous” and part of a “smear campaign.”
Now the plot thickens with the arrival of today’s court decision, which was detailed online in a series of tweets from journalist Nicolas Turcev, putting the odd prise d’acte employment law into view as well. Here’s the tweet:
.@Quantic_Dream vient de perdre un procès aux prud’hommes contre l’un des salariés au cœur de l’affaire des photomontages du début d’année. La prise d’acte du rupture de contrat de travail a été requalifiée en licenciement sans cause réelle et sérieuse. Le studio peut faire appel
— Nicolas Turcev (@DocElincia) July 26, 2018
One of the things that were detailed was the termination made by an employee who regarded themselves as a victim. With this termination, a worker would forfeit their employment rights and salary, but would then petition for unfair dismissal.
Meanwhile Detroit: Become Human sales have gone through the roof and the devs have declared the game as the company’s biggest success.
“We will work on a sequel if we feel we have ideas, passion and excitement to do it, and if we feel we have something more to say about this world,” Cage explained in a recent Ask-Me-Anything session over at Reddit. “We are driven by passion more than anything, although it is not always something reasonable… but we enjoyed working on Detroit a lot, and there are many exciting stories that could be told in this world for sure.”
Check out our review of Detroit: Become Human (PS4).
[Source: Eurogamer.net]
