Update: I've replaced the French term 'anticipation' with 'social science fiction' since it made the former was misleading in an English context.
I translated as well as I could but feel free to point out any errors if you see them!
Source is Les Numériques: https://www.lesnumeriques.com/jeux-...ome-human-est-proposition-radicale-a3729.html
I translated as well as I could but feel free to point out any errors if you see them!
Source is Les Numériques: https://www.lesnumeriques.com/jeux-...ome-human-est-proposition-radicale-a3729.html
David Cage: "Detroit: Become Human is a radical proposal"
Quantic Dream's latest game will be released on May 25th. It was an opportunity for Les Numériques to review the situation with David Cage, founder of the studio, on his ambitions and the hot topics of the video game industry.
This is the home stretch for Quantic Dream. Its founder David Cage presents his latest game Detroit: Become Human on Thursday, May 17th at the Max Linder cinema in Paris, before its release on May 25th. Four years of work on a project that mobilized up to 200 people for a title exclusively dedicated to the Sony PlayStation 4. We met the founder and emblematic boss of the French studio, heckled in recent months after the publication of investigations that have not gone unnoticed.
Can you give us a synopsis of Detroit: Become Human?
David Cage: It's a neo-noir thriller that takes place in the near future - 20 years from now - in which there are androids that look like us and are treated like machines because they are used to replace humans. The player plays three androids as strange things happen in this world. Androids begin to have irrational behaviors, which do not match their programming. They take initiatives and seem to have emotions. The player will be in their shoes. The player will tell their own story and create a destiny for these three characters. It starts as three totally independent stories but they will quickly intertwine.
Does this stem from a desire to return to sci-fi since Nomad Soul ? Are there similarities?
Detroit is social science fiction, not science fiction. There are no similarities with Nomad Soul. Back then we went with crazy ideas, in very distant worlds. With Detroit, we dive into the world 20 years from now. The idea is to imagine what our world will look like then. That's what interested me in this project. It's easier to tell something closer to the player. This allows us to work on the way our world evolves and to make references.
Why Detroit?
I read a lot of negative things about Detroit. We forgot that it was the world capital of the automobile (industry), before the brutal fall and deindustrialization - and the social problems that ensued. We lived it by going there. We discovered a real energy, and the will to pull through. It's exciting to see how we rise from the ashes, how we recreate a dynamic. We found people who are reinventing the future. We figured that an Android industry could be established there. And it's a city connected with the history of the United States, with the Civil Rights movement, the Motown culture in particular...
How does one imagine Detroit in 2038? What are your sources of inspiration?
We did a lot of investigations and preliminary research. We went there with a team and a movie scout, who helped us find iconic sites. And we set ourselves a rule on anticipation. Since we wanted to create a believable world, we worked only on technologies that already exist. These are not necessarily well-known things. We imagined how to extrapolate from technologies that are still in infancy. We thought a lot about what drones or smart windows will do. There are no flying cars, laser beams or crazy things. We wanted to be plausible.
Is there also an interest in transhumanism in the game?
Very little. This is not the topic we chose to develop, perhaps because it is very embryonic. We had trouble projecting ourselves into it.
In particular, you said that you were inspired by Raymond Kurzweil and his book The Singularity is Near. Have you had other sources of inspiration?
I started writing more than 4 years ago, and I deliberately tried to isolate myself so as not to be influenced by other productions or by anyone. Detroit talks about AI and androids, but the game is about us, about our society. It's not fundamentally a story about AI, paradoxically. For me, this is not the central subject. It's more like people waking up and saying to themselves, "Maybe I deserve a better life than the one I have." What interested me was to work on several levels of reading. The players will see them and make the connections.
Is your work inspired by cinema?
When you start writing, you try to pay tribute to the people you loved, then you try to find your own way and to return what you borrowed from the common fund. With Beyond: Two Souls, I embarked on a rather personal game. And I hope to continue on this path with Detroit. I hope this is my most original work. As for the notion of work (translator's note: as an artistic production), it's a word that I still have a hard time pronouncing.
There is a David Cage style. Quantic Dream is an independent studio which makes auteur games, right?
I don't know how to position myself in relation to that. It took me 20 years to tell myself I was a scriptwriter and to accept myself as such. The word auteur in the video game industry is a double-edged sword. I do things by instinct and with passion. With the hope that it speaks to people.
And on the opposite you avoid talking about 'video games' ...
That's true. I prefer the term interactive experience. When you talk about video games, there's the word game. There's a notion of fun, of casualness. Games are not supposed to address a certain number of themes, because there are things you can't have fun with, because it's too serious. It's not my conception of interactivity. Interacting is not necessarily having fun, in my opinion. It's to live something. It can be nice but it can also be dark, sad... We position ourselves more in this definition of the media. You can't make something fun from everything. But that's not what we do. We tell something; we want to make the player live something, and make them feel things that are not necessarily pleasant. This is a fundamental distinction. In one case, you're dealing with entertainment - with 'video games' - and you're not dealing with a work. In the other case, you're dealing with a means of expression that can approach any subject. You can talk about everything, so you're in a category like literature, cinema, theater...
Are both really incompatible? When we look at God of War or Naughty Dog games for example...
The two are not incompatible. In Detroit, we picked a side. Detroit is a radical proposal. This game is our profession of faith. I believe in a game which is a means of expression, which brings meaning without setting a limit for itself.
When we talk about your games as interactive movies, do you recognize yourself in this qualifier?
There's a deep confusion. We borrow a number of codes from cinema. There's a camera, actors, a script, a director of photography... When we talk to gamers, it brings us back to Philips' CD-i, cutscenes and movie pieces. In Detroit, you're always playing the hero. There are no cutscenes. The interactive dimension is fundamental in everything we do. We write a scenario in three dimensions: space, time and the field of possibilities. And this last dimension changes everything. We are no longer in a story, but in many stories. The player becomes the co-author and the co-actor of the story that we'll tell together. It's something that fascinates me. We create something together. When I see players, they all tell me different stories, depending on the choices they made.
You've set up a flowchart system that allows players to realize all the possibilities offered by the game, why?
This is one of the things we learned from past games. Some players did not necessarily realize they were missing some scenes. It's been bugging us. So we made the choice to stop being invisible and to show everything we hid behind the curtain. We invested so much in the tree to have as "nonlinear" a story as possible. When the player makes a choice, there are real consequences. And we wanted to represent them visually. In the feedback we got from the previews, everyone talked about those trees that show them what they missed. There are multiple categories of players - those who want to complete everything, and those who will be content with their first experience. But you have to play the game four, five times to see all the branches. We must accept the idea that only 10% of players will play a branch of the story. It's the multiplication of branches that will make the player feel they're telling their own story and carry their destiny. And give them the desire to come back, to share their experience with other players.
Is it important for you to have famous actors in your games?
Not at all. It can even be counterproductive. We never chose actors because of their notoriety, to sell games, because we know that this is not the case. We worked with David Bowie, Ellen Page, Willem Dafoe. But this is not necessary, and it can even induce a lot of suspicion among players, who can see it as a marketing move.
It can still help out when the game gets released, right?
When we work with David Bowie, it's because we're fans. These are artistic collaborations with actors, whether they're famous or not. What matters to me is the talent of the people.
Does Sony play a role in the choice of actors?
No, never. They never imposed anything on us. It's always been the decisions of the studio. We seek the talent on our own.
5 games in 20 years is not much for a studio. What explains your longevity with so little output?
We've always had the chance to meet publishers who believed in us. This has been the case with Sony for 12 years now. This is also due to the fact that we've never made sequels of our games. We've always worked on new games, with new engines. We don't want have an industrial logic. We see ourselves as craftsmen.
And again, does Sony not push you to adopt an industrial logic? Has a Heavy Rain 2 not crossed your mind?
We didn't want to do it. Sony didn't even ask us the question. With them, we want to invent new things, to try new stories. It's an atypical adventure. It's a luxury with maximum freedom. But there's no mystery. Every game we make is profitable and finds its audience. Heavy Rain reached 5.4 million units on a single platform. Each game is profitable and generates profits.
We're talking about the death of singleplayer games... Commercially, is it risky now to make singleplayer adventures, especially against Battle Royale ?
Sony does a remarkable job showing that singleplayer games are not dead. We can talk about God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us... They keep an audience for that.
Do singleplayer games speak more to older generations of gamers? How to seduce younger generations who are growing up with PUBG, Fortnite and the like?
These are different experiences. It may be a generational issue, but also a moment issue. There are fans of multiplayer games who, from time to time, are very happy to end up with a game like God of War or Detroit. There is room for everyone.
Quantic Dream has been around for 20 years now. Is it easier to run a studio today?
Setting up a studio has become almost impossible today. When I did it 20 years ago, it was manageable. I came from the music industry, I did not have any experience in the video game industry. And yet I found someone who trusted me. We arrived without investors, without equity, and we found a publisher. Now, managing a studio today is easier. Today, to make a game, there are development aids, tax breaks, to help the industry. Quantic and my associate Guillaume de Fondaumière were at the forefront of this fight to make video games a cultural activity, not just an industry. Today we're facing competition from Canada, for example, who has been doing this for years. We wanted to be able to fight on equal terms and keep talent in France. It's however more difficult when you make triple A titles. The market has totally tightened around very few games with very large budgets, i.e. 80 to 100 million euros. Way fewer games are being made, but on much larger budgets. This means that publishers take fewer creative risks as a result. And the low-budget range of games has almost totally disappeared.
And where do you rank on the budget scale?
We're at the bottom of the triple A range. We're trying to fight to remain competitive internationally. We had the budget we wanted for Detroit. It's not a cheap game. People will realize it by playing it. There's a lot of technology. I hope this game will compete with Triple A titles.
How many people worked on the game?
We were around 200. It's a big team but we're far from breaking records. Today there are games developed by more than 1,000 people.
A lot happened recently in the video game industry: the creation of the Union of video game workers (STJV), the strike at Eugen Systems, wage demands... What are your views on these social evolutions in the industry?
I don't really have a comment to make on this subject. These are things we've been taking head on for a long time. We're a studio that has been offering royalties to its teams since Nomad Soul. We've been offering incentive compensation for our employees for 20 years. We're trying to have a competitive salary grid. If you don't pay people properly, they don't come to you, simple as that. And today, the war between studios is not about having the most powerful PCs in your office, but about having the most talented people, attracting them and keeping them. We have collaborators who have been there for 10 to 15 years. A studio like Quantic cannot exist for 20 years if it doesn't do what it takes to keep talented people. Every day, in my employee's mailboxes, there are head hunters who send them job offers to go to the United States, in all the best studios in the world. So we try to make them happy and to allow them to flourish.
You sued Médiapart and Le Monde after their investigations on Quantic Dream. Is it a way to defend the image of your studio?
I cannot comment.
These stories happened when you were finishing Detroit. How did you feel during this period?
I cannot comment.
Are you already on the "post-Detroit" phase - a new project, new desires? Still with Sony?
We have a game-by-game contract with Sony. We have many desires and plans for the future...
Virtual reality projects?
I have no announcements to make. It's a medium that interests us a lot. There are lots of things to do. Since we're close to Sony, we're keeping a close eye on it.
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