David Cage

David De Gruttola, known by his pseudonym David Cage, is a French video game designer, writer and musician. He is the founder of the game development studio Quantic Dream. Cage wrote and directed both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls for the PlayStation 3.

Born in Mulhouse, France, Cage is the head of game developer studio Quantic Dream. Cage plays a central role in the company and the development of the games, being founder, co-CEO (with Guillaume de Fondaumière), director, lead game designer, and screenwriter. As a professional musician, he created the company Totem Interactive in 1993, which worked in music and sound productions. He worked as a freelance musician on several television, film and video game projects, involved with original soundtrack work.

His earlier works (under the name De Gruttola) include the music in the video games Super Dany, Cheese Cat-Astrophe starring Speedy Gonzales, Timecop, and Hardline. David Cage founded Quantic Dream in 1997. He has designed and directed all four games released by the studio: Omikron: The Nomad Soul, Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls.

At the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards, in which Quantic Dream won three awards for Heavy Rain, Cage stated that "games always explore the same things. They're about being powerful, being the good guys against the bad guys – that's a very tiny part of what can be done. There are so many other stories to tell, so many other emotions to trigger – this is a fantastic new medium, we can do much more than we currently do with it." Game developer Warren Spector described Cage as one of the best storytellers in the business, calling him a genius.

Cage has been critical of "game over" events in story-driven, non-action video games, calling them "a state of failure more for the game designer than from the player".

Cage was the first game developer to receive the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration granted in France.