Early last year, David Cage-led development house Quantic Dream came under fire for allegations of homophobia, sexism and other nasty internal happenings. An investigation led to several legal actions, including the developer suing the outlets that initially published the reports. Now, at least one of those actions has been settled, with Quantic Dream required to pay out over $8000 to a former IT manager over an offensive caricature. Despite that decision, the developer itself is characterizing the action as a win.
In a tweet released yesterday afternoon in English and French, Quantic Dream states that the judge in the case “rejected all of the ex-employee’s principal requests.” Said ex-employee was seeking damages and compensation from the settlement, much more than the payout he received. The judge does describe the image as “homophobic, misogynistic, racist or deeply vulgar.” However, Quantic Dream was only found guilty of failing to secure the drawing in question from getting out once reports of their actions became public.
— Quantic Dream (@Quantic_Dream) December 2, 2019
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Quantic Dream has stated that they will not appeal the decision and that they’ve laid out the facts of this verdict to “prevent any misinformation or misrepresentation.” The company is still embroiled in other legal battles stemming from the report at the time of this writing.
In addition to the charges of homophobia and sexism, Quantic Dream was also accused of providing poor working conditions for its developers. Earlier this year, Game Workers United and French union Solidaires Informatique started a unified investigation of their own regarding these conditions and the possible sexual misdeeds. They put the call out for whistleblowers on their website, guaranteeing total confidentiality and legal assistance, if necessary.
Quantic Dream has released several of their previously PlayStation-exclusive titles on PC via the Epic Game Store throughout 2019. They have no announced projects in the work, but they’ve said that previous titles will release on multiple platforms simultaneously.
