Microsoft Rejected Heavy Rain Due To Child Abduction Plot

[Steven Bogos]

Microsoft Rejected Heavy Rain Due To Child Abduction Plot

Sawing someone's head off with a chainsaw-gun: OK! Abducting someone's son: that's a no-go.

Heavy Rain, a dramatic noir thriller revolving around the abduction of main character Ethan's son Shaun, went on to become one of the PlayStation 3's strongest games, receiving universal praise from critics and becoming a bestseller for the system. But, it was almost an Xbox 360 title, Quantic Dream's head of development David Cage, revealing that the developer first pitched the game to Microsoft, who rejected it due to the aforementioned child abduction plot.

"We were pitching Heavy Rain to different publishers, including Sony, and we went to Microsoft," said Cage at this year's BAFTA annual games lecture. "They got scared by the fact that Heavy Rain was about kids being kidnapped, and they said, 'This is an issue, we want to change it'. Well, we could have kidnapped cats, it would be a different experience!"

"For me, that was a very interesting signal. It was like, you know what, I don't think we can work together, because you don't understand what I'm to achieve here." he continued, "They were scared of the scandal and scared of what people may write and what people may think. 'Oh, this is a developer and the publisher making games about a child getting kidnapped."

Cage said his conversations with Sony went much smoother, with the studio understanding that it had to take a risk to publish a great story. "We had this conversation with Sony very honestly saying, 'Okay, there is a reason here'. But I think they understand the upside of what we were doing. We could understand each other, and this is how Heavy Rain happened."

Source: Phil! [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a512356/heavy-rain-was-turned-down-by-microsoft-over-child-kidnapping-story.html])

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[Compatriot Block]

Sorry, all I can ever remember from that game is Press X to JASON.

The story was not as awe-inspiring as I would have hoped. In my opinion, of course.

Not to mention the twist that involves the game straight-up lying to the player.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I have heard many great things of this game, but one game alone is not sufficient justification for a console. Maybe they will do a PC release?

 

[BrotherRool]

And this is why I'm getting a PS4 instead of an Xbox. Sony just seem more interested in unusual games

 

[Thaluikhain]

TBF, child abduction is rather more common than chainsaw gun decapitations in the real world, I could see why that'd be more of a concern at the current time.

 

[Teoes]

Sorry, when I read quotes from David Cage I can only hear them in my head à la Jim Sterling's "Emotions, emotions, emotions" mockery. Kinda ruins the news piece but makes it much funnier at the same time. Damn you, Jim.

 

[Cybylt]

I have heard many great things of this game, but one game alone is not sufficient justification for a console. Maybe they will do a PC release?

Trust me when I say those "great things" are all exaggerations of a high caliber. Heavy Rain was a step in the more serious direction for Quantic because the killer/kidnapper didn't turn out to be an aztec robot who the dad goes on to have matrix style kung fu fights against.

All though considering the plot hole and red herring based twists of Heavy Rain, that might actually have been a better turn.

 

[Tony2077]

speaking of heavy rain i'm wondering if i should get it

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Remember when George Lucas told people that studios turned down Red Tails because "it has an all-black cast"? And how he talked up that studios were all racist artless bigots who didn't want to put their name onto the "first action film with an all-black cast" (George Lucas, lying)? And then the film came out and it became pretty obvious that they didn't turn down the film for any other reason than it's a piece of shit.

Maybe Microsoft looked at Heavy Rain and said, hey, you're kidnapping kids, that's a bad that. Or maybe they looked at it and said, look, you artless hack, your kidnapping a child here is shallow and manipulative storytelling at its worst, maybe you could, I dunno, make it actually as clever as you think it is? And then David Cage said ahh no kidnapping children what is this a SNES game or some shit and ran away to Sony.

You see, creators are so often biased when it comes to relaying stories like this. I have very little reason to believe Cage isn't exaggerating here.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

TBF, child abduction is rather more common than chainsaw gun decapitations in the real world, I could see why that'd be more of a concern at the current time.

Personally, I still think the opening quip has a point: We're a lot more accepting of violence in our media than most other types of socially unaccepted (or even accepted) behavior. I mean, I'm not sure if chainsaw decapitations can really be related to kidnappings, regardless of how many are currently happening in real life. In any case, I'm guessing that it's not the protagonist who's kidnapping anyone (or chopping people's heads off), so I don't see why people would be against the 'bad guys' doing horrible stuff in a game designed for adults.
BTW, I in no way want to be insensitive to anyone who has actually had their children abducted and I can imagine that seeing it in a game could be painful.

Remember when George Lucas told people that studios turned down Red Tails because "it has an all-black cast"? And how he talked up that studios were all racist artless bigots who didn't want to put their name onto the "first action film with an all-black cast" (George Lucas, lying)? And then the film came out and it became pretty obvious that they didn't turn down the film for any other reason than it's a piece of shit.

Maybe Microsoft looked at Heavy Rain and said, hey, you're kidnapping kids, that's a bad that. Or maybe they looked at it and said, look, you artless hack, your kidnapping a child here is shallow and manipulative storytelling at its worst, maybe you could, I dunno, make it actually as clever as you think it is? And then David Cage said ahh no kidnapping children what is this a SNES game or some shit and ran away to Sony.

You see, creators are so often biased when it comes to relaying stories like this. I have very little reason to believe Cage isn't exaggerating here.

I haven't played Heavy Rain so I don't know anything about it's quality, but 'universal praise from critics' sounds like it was at least a little better than Red Tails. That and the fact that MS said "We have an issue with a story containing children being kidnapped", while I doubt any of, ah, 'those studios' said "We have an issue with making a show with an all-black cast."
Still! No one likes it when someone doesn't love their baby project that they've poured their heart and soul into for years.

 

[Zeckt]

Or maybe Microsoft rejected the game because it's a load of horse manure, and even Microsoft wasn't willing to dirty their hands with David Cage's latest I-wish-I-was-a-movie-producer-so-bad-but-could-never-make-it-in-Hollywood-so-I-write-games-instead game.

Just sayin'.

So by your logic, microsoft is okay with fable 3 having no gameplay and a stupid story yet it's not okay for Heavy Rain. Microsoft is just as guilty if not more so for releasing a stupid game. More so, as in having far, far less exclusives and one of the few they had was WORSE in terms of gameplay and story then heavy rain.

 

[Vivi22]

Maybe Microsoft looked at Heavy Rain and said, hey, you're kidnapping kids, that's a bad that. Or maybe they looked at it and said, look, you artless hack, your kidnapping a child here is shallow and manipulative storytelling at its worst, maybe you could, I dunno, make it actually as clever as you think it is? And then David Cage said ahh no kidnapping children what is this a SNES game or some shit and ran away to Sony.

You see, creators are so often biased when it comes to relaying stories like this. I have very little reason to believe Cage isn't exaggerating here.

And I have many reasons to believe you're giving Microsoft far too much credit.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

All the Cage-bashing aside, Heavy Rain was an interesting game. Interesting. There aren't a slew of games out there just like it, as there are with many success stories. That's always gonna win points with me.

More to the point, this is the kind of thing that compels people to use the phrase "interactive media" over "video games" because there is a diminutive stigma about the word "games"; it would appear that Microsoft still considers them to be a children's product, context be damned, & Sony deserves credit for handling things in a more genuine & mature manner (que the "rated M" jokes)

 

[Jadak]

What about Shinobi then? There were kidnapped children all over the place, heck they were bonus points. I think they were children. Some of them could've been adults I suppose.

I think it was less about wanting to avoid getting behind a game featuring child abduction, and more about not wanting to risk backing such a project at high budget levels. Shinobi was a cheaper affair, so likely nobody much cared about backing it or not. Although more relevantly, I can not find anything indicating that Microsoft published that Shinobi, so doesn't really apply...

 

[mysecondlife]

It was actually Heavy Rain that sold me on PS3. Its not the greatest game and it was bit boring at first, but good times were had. If it were multi-platform, my choice for PS3 over Xbox would've been harder.