Dream said that over the years prior that there had been several offers to buy the studio, and they had selected NetEase's proposal as it was favorable to their continued development. Philosophy Quantic Dream's video games are written and directed by Cage and branded accordingly, with the purpose of making new intellectual properties. Cage has declared that his mission is to evoke emotion through interactive storytelling, highlighting empathy, sadness, and guilt in opposition to frustration, competition, and anger. As such, he described purchasing Heavy Rain as a "political act" that others like it could be made. The developer strives to appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike, considering video games to be the same as any artform. It is customary at Quantic Dream to develop an engine for each new game, hardware, or platform; Cage believes that, while an engine's methodology can be ported, its code cannot. Tech demos have likewise become tradition. In France, Quantic Dream is afforded a 20% tax break on production costs, without which Cage has said he would move the company to Canada to keep up with the competition. Hostile workplace reports In January 2018, three French news outlets—Le Monde, Mediapart, and Canard PC—published the results of a joint investigation into the company's business practices. Le Monde called Quantic Dream "a toxic corporate culture, management with inappropriate words and attitudes, under-considered employees, overwhelming workloads and questionable contractual practices". First among the issues raised by the newspapers, Cage and de Fondaumière were said to have participated in or encouraged a sexist and racist culture, with controversial images exchanged by email and posted around the office including photos of studio collaborators and employees digitally edited to appear as Nazis or porn stars. Canard PC stated that the entire IT department had quit in March 2017 because of these "bad jokes". Second, studio management was accused of employing an arduous "crunch time" schedule in which 15-35 additional hours of work per week were expected for a year before a game's launch. Third, the human resources department was accused of colluding to terminate fixed-term contract staff before their deal expired, violating French labour laws, and arranging settlements to remove employees who did not fit in with the studio culture. In particular, the reports outlined how de Fondaumière conspired with the company to use French labor laws to contest his dismissal in 2016 and obtain a compensation fee that was not