David Cage’s Quantic Nightmare
Or, a homoerotic reading of Heavy Rain
In 2018, a former employee of Quantic Dream sued the studio for fostering a hostile workplace culture. Group CEO and Creative Director David Cage, however, wholeheartedly denies the accusation — he asserted that his detractor’s claims were “ridiculous, absurd, and grotesque”, demanding that the public “judge [his] work” before drawing conclusions. By that metric, perhaps we have all been too quick to insult the studio after all. Quantic Dream really puts the “work” in “workplace”: its dutiful employees spent countless hours of crunch on a 600-strong gallery of staff members photoshopped onto porn (and a bonus Hitler photoshoot DLC)! If that’s not true dedication to the workplace, I don’t know what is.
Many of the filenames in this leaked folder demonstrate Quantic Dream’s strong commitment to environmental storytelling. The above image, for example, is labeled “LeClubDesPutes.jpg”, translating to “The Whores Club”. The banner in the top left corner of this image, however, adds some poetic spice to the equation: it reads, “The Little Whores Club”. Much more endearing. Soulful, even.
