Le Monde Vous Regarde

People who seek a spotlight should be wary of how bright they are.

David Cage is the biggest charlatan in the games industry. I have said it before and I just said it again. This was my view as the outsider, an individual looking in to the man, his games and his company, judging him by his works. Just as the man himself recently asked us all to, stemming from allegations by former employees that confirms these views, and also more and much worse. Things that could be construed as libel were they found to be baseless after a challenge in court. Namely, that Cage and Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumière, run Quantic Dream as a toxic boys club, harboring racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes, as well as engaging in abusive (and, under French labour laws, probably illegal) work practices. 

So considering that a paper like Le Monde is willing to print those same Things in its pages is a sign David, le Roi Soleil, is probably going to be having a bit of a PR problem ahead of Detroit's release.

As an aside, I would have gone with le Dauphin for young Dave, but then again I don't work with him or know personally his work ethic, so I'll defer to the former employees.

So here's where the pieces lie on the campaign map: Quantic Dream has circled the wagons, denying all allegations. Sony, a company which as of late has stood in silent defense of Life of Black Tiger: The Rage of Black Tiger, a barely functioning game-like app which pirates a cover from an anime soundtrack for its trailer, has blacklisted at least one journalist at Le Monde, France's premier news outlet. The malefic, fucked up, incel Quatto gestalt that is the right wing game community has suddenly, despite years of deriding him as a maker of 'walking simulators', decided that Cage is a valued creator, and both his work and his right to free speech must be protected. Proving once again that ant bites cause brain damage.

This videogame shit makes my inner Tiamat worshiper dance like little else.

But that's even before we get into allegations of what Cage himself has said in response to these allegations. Proving once again he is master of the Bad Decision, he has responded to allegations of racism, homophobia and sexism by lashing out. His words:

"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."  

Apparently, out of all the little Playstation button icons orbiting David's head when he said this, he chose to hit X to Remind of Black Friend.

He also apparently made this statement in a room where, on the whiteboard, "a dick with farting testicles" was drawn.

This is an absolute whopper statement, one that would assuredly hold water with people who don't actually think about things, at all, ever. For those of us who aren't that, it immediately falls apart off the starting line, because the literal second sentence is so chock full of pathetic bullshit, I legitimately have to resort to a bullet-pointed breakdown to make it concise and briskly readable:

• Worked with Ellen Page. Worked. Past Tense.
• Ellen Page, who at the time had not yet come out and was not yet a visibly queer celebrity.
• Ellen Page, who had a nude model made of her without her consent, which was nevertheless tucked away on the game disk, finalized and shipped. Meaning, Dave, you shipped secret nude fan art of her to everyone that bought your game.

David, if you were the type that had the juice that could throw to your powerful allies in Hollywood, Jean Claude Van Damme would have spoken out for you over the top notch job you did on the Timecop soundtrack. You can't be a homophobe because you worked with Ellen Page? You know what Dave, let's test that. Call her up, you're so friendly with her. Let's all hear what she has to say to you, just in general, not even over this.

It's also, at this point, I just want to quote the Eurogamer article about this fiasco. You know, just, no reason in particular:

Cage is also accused of a lack of consideration for female colleagues, and of making insistent dirty jokes, smutty remarks in the presence of his wife, and inappropriate remarks about actresses in his games. 

Emphasis mine. Again, no particular reason.

But no, that's the wrong thing to do. I know this, because I am now a member of the Official Games Press, and as a Certified Games Journalist, there are rules I have to abide to. One of these, bafflingly, is that I have to obey David Cage at his word. If he wants me to only play Heavy Rain once so the decisions I made seem more significant, and not because the game is a haunted house ride through a stilted murder plot that would show all its flaws in a second run through, I have to do it. It's the law. A nerd told me that once, and nerds understand the law better than anyone.

So then, Dave, were this just another story of a shitty abusive boss and the shitty abusive workplace they run, I would have judged you as ever other public personality that has some skeletons dredged up and thrown out in the town square. I would have said "huh, that sounds shitty, I wonder what they have to say about it," in anticipation of judging your response. Your response, personally, was to lash out, evoke "people you know" (celebrities that act in your games) and ask that you be judged by your work. Had you been professional, you would have issued a statement about your concern over the allegations, affirmed Quantic Dream's commitment to being a positive work environment and a premier developer, and then you would have shut the fuck up until you see how things play out before making your next move. You probably also should have rolled up a newspaper, hit Guillaume with it, and told him to go lay down in the other room, because his comment about "ranting" former employees definitely did not help public image.

Instead, I'm going to judge you by your work. Open the goddamned bloodgates.

David Cage, judging you by your work, you are a false, weak artist, a hopeless, socially inept creep, an inept, idiotic human gelding of a man. Every remaining bit of you is made of bullshit, because you cut out your heart, your brain and your balls, boxed them up, parceled them and sold them in exchange for whatever dark glamour that makes you catnip to game industry board rooms. Your games suck because they're bad movies, your movies suck because they're bad games, and all of them leak from every seam with the sludge of your hopelessly broken sense of morality. You wouldn't know Right from Wrong if Right was your parole officer and Wrong beat you half to death with a hockey sock full of batteries on a weekly basis. Because of this literal observable reality, easily grasped by anyone with basic critical thinking ability, and because you are exactly the type of arrogant, senseless shitheel that would respond to personal controversy with "judge me by my work," I am going to do just that and say that you are exactly the kind of person those former employees of yours allege you to be. I believe you did these things, David Cage, judging you by your work.

And if you don't like this opinion of mine, this thing that's out there, that says you did and allowed all the scandalous shit you're alleged, because I'm judging you by what I read through your awful games, just remember:

You asked for this.