Back in 2018, Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream was rocked by allegations of fostering a toxic work environment. The studio was accused of sexual harassment and other inappropriate conduct towards its employees – a charge that the company’s founders deny to this day – following an investigation by French publications Le Monde, CanardPC, and Mediapart.
Quantic Dream has since been legally scrutinized on several occasions (including being found guilty of not fulfilling security obligations towards employees) but co-founder David Cage has accused the aforementioned websites of personal bias in a new interview with VentureBeat.
Cage said that Quantic Dream was contacted by a group of French journalists with “surreal” questions including the following:
- We found an invoice of $10 for room service in a hotel in Las Vegas. Was this for a prostitute?
- We heard that one of your employees had a mouse pad with a sexy female character. Do you think this is acceptable?
- One of your employees had a heavy metal T-shirt that someone found offending. Do you encourage this?
- You are known to work a lot. Are you aware that some people who work less may feel bad about you working more?
According to Cage, the journalists had their own agenda, and rather than thoroughly investigating former employees’ claims, they insisted on painting Quantic Dream in a negative light.
“The story they wanted is very simple: Quantic Dream and their top managers are very successful but this success was built on a toxic atmosphere and perverted management,” Cage told VentureBeat.
However, the accused journalists have said that all of the aforementioned questions were made up by Quantic Dream’s PR department for VentureBeat’s interview. The actual questions they asked are available for the public to read.
“Bold to completely invent all of these questions,” tweeted Sebastien Delahaye. “Here is the list of ‘surreal’ (actually technical and very boring) questions sent by Mediapart, Le Monde and Canard PC to Quantic Dream on December 26th, 2017.”
Since the publication of VentureBeat’s article, the website has been sharply criticized by fellow journalists, who have accused interviewer Dean Takahashi for becoming a “mouthpiece” for Quantic Dream by publishing a series of specially arranged PR interviews rather than conducting an independent investigation.
VentureBeat has yet to respond.
[Source: VentureBeat via ResetEra]
