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.
Thank you for posting this. I saw it got published over the weekend, but have not had time to watch the whole thing, though I plan to soon. I will say that having read some of the conversations on...
Thank you for posting this. I saw it got published over the weekend, but have not had time to watch the whole thing, though I plan to soon.
I will say that having read some of the conversations on the video, it sounds like People Make Games seem to be conflating two pretty separate issues together. Kurvitz may have been a bad boss and created a bad working environment, but that is not the issue of the legal dispute over the ownership of the IP and ZA/UM. Kurvitz and Hindpere may be hypocritical and not living up to the ideals that they espouse, but that does not take away from the hostile takeover and probable naiveness of the original creators.
I think this is a pretty solid comment from the DE subreddit that should be considered:
Ask yourself this, what do these employees really have to gain from supporting Kurvitz? He is right to say that they are being used, even if they don't realize it in strict terms. They have bills to pay, families to feed, etc. and speaking in explicit terms, they have no reason to support him if he's not providing their income, but ZA/UM studios is. I have no doubt that he probably is a difficult person to work with, I am sure they all have their difficulties like in any other collaborative setting, but nonetheless it doesn't really have any bearing on the fact that the main point of this whole thing, is that these people created a world and idea prior to the game even being developed, and had it robbed from them. While it is sad that some of the writers contributed in meaningful ways to the overall project by adding unique characters and stories to the overall narrative, it doesn't justify taking the whole thing from the people who conceptualized it in the first place.
I will say that while I understand that PMG needed something substantial in their investigation into the topic to justify the overhead costs of traveling to interview and meet with people, I don't agree with making 1/3 of the video center on the personal disputes between employees and the creators. While it may seem to justify the overall goal of establishing all sides of the issue, it has nothing to do with the legal dispute that is the main focus of the controversy surrounding this game, and serves as fluff to engage viewers in discussion which serves the tangible benefit of having more viewers tune in if they choose to be engaged in this dispute.
This narrative of putting the employees in the middle of the case is just gross and attempting to fracture support by appealing to leftist sensibilities that the fandom is known for. The cut and dry is that they created the IP, they're being robbed of it, and there's no legal outcome that benefits the workers either way so there's no point in having their perspective other than to make the creators less sympathetic in the public eye which invariably benefits the guy robbing them in the first place.
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.
Thank you for posting this. I saw it got published over the weekend, but have not had time to watch the whole thing, though I plan to soon.
I will say that having read some of the conversations on the video, it sounds like People Make Games seem to be conflating two pretty separate issues together. Kurvitz may have been a bad boss and created a bad working environment, but that is not the issue of the legal dispute over the ownership of the IP and ZA/UM. Kurvitz and Hindpere may be hypocritical and not living up to the ideals that they espouse, but that does not take away from the hostile takeover and probable naiveness of the original creators.
I think this is a pretty solid comment from the DE subreddit that should be considered:
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.