In this video, People Make Games delves really deep into all the various allegations and lawsuits surrounding Disco Elysium and the studio behind it, ZA/UM, and IMO does some incredible...
In this video, People Make Games delves really deep into all the various allegations and lawsuits surrounding Disco Elysium and the studio behind it, ZA/UM, and IMO does some incredible investigative journalism on the subject. They even went so far as to interview ZA/UM's CEO, Ilmar Kompus, as well as a bunch of other current+former employees (one of whom, Argo Tuulik, was also a founding member of the original ZA/UM Cultural Association artist collective, is still with the company, and strongly disagrees with Robert Kurvitz's version of events). It puts everything in context, and shows just how insanely complicated and murky ZA/UM's history, ownership, and the current legal situation really is.
And just my personal opinion, but despite how dodgy the whole ownership debacle was, and how shady many of the investors were/are, the video also does not paint a very flattering picture of Robert Kurvitz, or his partner Helen Hindpere either. Kurvitz is talked about by all the other employees as being incredibly difficult to work with/for, toxic, selfish, and self-aggrandizing, and Hindpere as a bit of slacker who didn't actually do much work at the company, and didn't actually do much writing either despite her job title. Aleksander Rostov is about the only person that was talked about fondly by the others, but also as being a bit of a stooge for Kurvitz.
So take all that for what you will... but to me the whole things sounds like an absolute mess. Kurvitz may have been naive, and taken advantage of when it came to ownership shares of the company and its IP, but it doesn't sound like he's entirely innocent here either. And regardless of whether he should have been given a larger slice of the pie for his original ideas for the world, and his contributions to the game, it still sounds like he was actually fired for genuine cause (esp if he really did try to steal the game's source code, as was alleged, and sounds likely).
cc: @dubteedub since you posted an IGN article last year about Robert Kurvitz's allegations regarding ZA/UM, and took them at face value.
Ah, yes. The DiscoElysium subreddit... the most unbiased, and objective of sources on this subject. ;) IMO, PMG didn't conflate anything, nor were they crafting a narrative to put the employees in...
Ah, yes. The DiscoElysium subreddit... the most unbiased, and objective of sources on this subject. ;)
IMO, PMG didn't conflate anything, nor were they crafting a narrative to put the employees in the middle of this. It was Kurvitz himself who brought that issue up by accusing Kompus of being behind a conspiracy to turn the other employees against him before he was fired, as part of his unfair dismissal case against the company (which he later dropped). And when the employees were asked about Kurvitz and what he was like to work with they all complained about him being a terrible boss, and a bit of a selfish asshole. So there was clearly no conspiracy even required to turn people against him, he did that to himself. And I think him, Hindpere, and Rostov taking a full 2 month vacation right in the middle of the studio working on The Final Cut version, leaving the teams they were supposedly in charge of completely in the lurch, and not even being willing to provide feedback on the teams’ work while they were gone, was a prime example of the poor leadership that the employees complained about, and yet another example of the selfishness that they were all resentful of.
And TBH, I also find the "what do the employees have to gain by backing him up, when he isn't the one paying their bills" argument to be amongst the absolute weakest possible. But whatever. If people genuinely think that then they have clearly already made up their mind about who to believe, and no amount of testimony or personal accounts will change that.
So I suggest you simply watch the video yourself and make up your own mind. I didn't get the sense that any of the interviewed employees were being anything other than candid, but judge that for yourself.
p.s. The Kompus interview is an exception though. He came across as being incredibly evasive, and I don’t doubt for a second that something shady happened regarding the “loan” he acquired to buy out the other investor in order to gain majority control.
In this video, People Make Games delves really deep into all the various allegations and lawsuits surrounding Disco Elysium and the studio behind it, ZA/UM, and IMO does some incredible investigative journalism on the subject. They even went so far as to interview ZA/UM's CEO, Ilmar Kompus, as well as a bunch of other current+former employees (one of whom, Argo Tuulik, was also a founding member of the original ZA/UM Cultural Association artist collective, is still with the company, and strongly disagrees with Robert Kurvitz's version of events). It puts everything in context, and shows just how insanely complicated and murky ZA/UM's history, ownership, and the current legal situation really is.
And just my personal opinion, but despite how dodgy the whole ownership debacle was, and how shady many of the investors were/are, the video also does not paint a very flattering picture of Robert Kurvitz, or his partner Helen Hindpere either. Kurvitz is talked about by all the other employees as being incredibly difficult to work with/for, toxic, selfish, and self-aggrandizing, and Hindpere as a bit of slacker who didn't actually do much work at the company, and didn't actually do much writing either despite her job title. Aleksander Rostov is about the only person that was talked about fondly by the others, but also as being a bit of a stooge for Kurvitz.
So take all that for what you will... but to me the whole things sounds like an absolute mess. Kurvitz may have been naive, and taken advantage of when it came to ownership shares of the company and its IP, but it doesn't sound like he's entirely innocent here either. And regardless of whether he should have been given a larger slice of the pie for his original ideas for the world, and his contributions to the game, it still sounds like he was actually fired for genuine cause (esp if he really did try to steal the game's source code, as was alleged, and sounds likely).
cc: @dubteedub since you posted an IGN article last year about Robert Kurvitz's allegations regarding ZA/UM, and took them at face value.
Ah, yes. The DiscoElysium subreddit... the most unbiased, and objective of sources on this subject. ;)
IMO, PMG didn't conflate anything, nor were they crafting a narrative to put the employees in the middle of this. It was Kurvitz himself who brought that issue up by accusing Kompus of being behind a conspiracy to turn the other employees against him before he was fired, as part of his unfair dismissal case against the company (which he later dropped). And when the employees were asked about Kurvitz and what he was like to work with they all complained about him being a terrible boss, and a bit of a selfish asshole. So there was clearly no conspiracy even required to turn people against him, he did that to himself. And I think him, Hindpere, and Rostov taking a full 2 month vacation right in the middle of the studio working on The Final Cut version, leaving the teams they were supposedly in charge of completely in the lurch, and not even being willing to provide feedback on the teams’ work while they were gone, was a prime example of the poor leadership that the employees complained about, and yet another example of the selfishness that they were all resentful of.
And TBH, I also find the "what do the employees have to gain by backing him up, when he isn't the one paying their bills" argument to be amongst the absolute weakest possible. But whatever. If people genuinely think that then they have clearly already made up their mind about who to believe, and no amount of testimony or personal accounts will change that.
So I suggest you simply watch the video yourself and make up your own mind. I didn't get the sense that any of the interviewed employees were being anything other than candid, but judge that for yourself.
p.s. The Kompus interview is an exception though. He came across as being incredibly evasive, and I don’t doubt for a second that something shady happened regarding the “loan” he acquired to buy out the other investor in order to gain majority control.