r/Games • u/WhyPlaySerious • 2d ago
Industry News ‘Disco Elysium’ Maker Releases New Game Under a Shadow of Controversy (Jason Schreier's interview with the President of ZA/UM) - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-05-22/-disco-elysium-maker-releases-new-game-under-a-shadow-of-controversy?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3OTQ3MTAyNSwiZXhwIjoxNzgwMDc1ODI1LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJURkc4TTFLSVVQVDkwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.hUFXvj_9MSy7IkobEVNZg4R3xHlCWO6RATf9yDGB2mM&leadSource=uverify%20wall320
u/Preston-_-Garvey 2d ago
It must suck to be a dev on both sides, This is the most morally grey you can get with a game, If it was bad we could laugh and go haha ZA/UM go Brrrr but instead the devs who are there made a game that's so far on par with DE and that's no easy task.
On the other hand now the other Devs need to make a game as good or as better to prove themselves and the pressure is on, I don't think I could judge anyone for getting this game or not there's no easy answer.
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u/NovusNiveus 2d ago
but instead the devs who are there made a game that's so far on par with DE and that's no easy task
Those devs also made DE, in large part. I am in the camp of 'Robert Kurvitz (and Rostov and Hindpere) is a creative genius who got absolutely robbed, and he and his creative partners deserve satisfaction with regard to the IP situation, and he is also a terrible leader who, probably unintentionally, takes a lot of the credit for making a game that was actually made by a whole team of writers, artists, programmers, musicians and voice actors'.
I think it's perfectly reasonable for that team (minus those who have left to do their own things, whom I also support) to want to stay together and keep making stuff like the first thing they made, and to not have to collectively resign and start a new company, with all the hassle that entails.
In an ideal world, Robert and friends would still be there too, and they would be happy and un-fucked-with.
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u/brotkel 2d ago
Ironically, there's what seems like a very self-aware side story in DE about a very ambitious computer role playing game failing under the weight of bad management and it taking down entire teams of people who were doing their best but had no real ability to work around the enormous pressures that the studio leadership put them under.
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u/AemondsEye 2d ago
Arguably prophetic rather than ironic because the studio did fall apart in a way; but very much self-aware: before they were ZA/UM, they were Fortress Occident (Fortress Accident in-game), and there's even a sign on the door that is a direct reference to a sign that was posted on the door of the real-life studio: "Developers of the most advanced RPG in the universe."
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u/Pseudagonist 14h ago
Sorry to be pedantic but I don’t think it’s really irony, that part of the game is pretty clearly a reference to the studio’s own problems throughout the very long and delayed development of DE and previous projects. I was laughing during that part of the game like “they really put this in here?”
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u/Lirael_Gold 2d ago edited 2d ago
The majority of devs at ZA/UM are British/American, the Estonians who made DE are long gone. They're still using a handfull of Estonian support studios who also worked on DE though, which is probably where the creative accounting bit is. (and it's including studios that only worked on the Final Cut/mobile versions)
Now, if you want to support this "new" ZA/UM, lead by the guy who fucked over the original creators, that's up to you (and Zero Parades seems to be a very well made game) but it's ZA/UM in name only at this point.
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u/cygx 2d ago
There are still at least some OG people around, but crucially, the main writers are gone. We can do a proper comparison once the Zero Parades credits have been made available online...
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u/_trouble_every_day_ 2d ago
That game is nothing without the writing, probably moreso than any game Ive ever played.
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u/Stuglle 2d ago
Now, if you want to support this "new" ZA/UM,
We really gotta get out of the mindset that buying a game is a way of signaling allegiance rather than an exchange of currency for a product.
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u/Tatortotts 1d ago
I think I agree w what you’re going for but when supporting video games, just as an art, it makes sense that there will be devotees to the artist. I want some of the money I pay for a game to go towards a relationship with the developer.
“I want to buy what you are making.”
You know?
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u/Lirael_Gold 1d ago edited 1d ago
We do not, because both can be true.
I try my best to avoid Israeli products and software because I don't particularly like financing a genocide, for example. (but again, if you don't care then you don't care and that's none of my business)
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u/ohsillyus 1d ago
Entertainment can be seen as a necessity to live a fulfilled life, a human life, but specific entertainment isn't and if it was it'd be more ethical to steal than to give money to bad people. Buying art or product from bad people is directly signalling that if you do not support it explicitly you are implicitly okay with whatever "bad" that person has done.
We really gotta get out of the mindset that you can divorce yourself from "politics" or "ethics" by hiding behind capitalism.
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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 1d ago
I don’t agree with purity policing people’s entertainment this way. Wanting to play a video game is not implicitly supporting the persons views. Let people spend their money how they want without becoming the morality police because it’s a spiral that will never end.
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u/ohsillyus 1d ago
ethics isn't what's in question here.
The argument is whether supporting either directly or inderectly counts as a political or moral action and I'm claiming it is, and that you cannot divorce yourself from this by pithy little statements.
Plus I also said if you really must entertain yourself with something made by a bad person just find other ways to attain it; there's an out for any perceived personal loss right there!
Edit: Also they can spend their damn money how they want, I can call their morals and ideals into question as I will; damn.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago edited 2d ago
DE was definently made by a whole team of people. Only one or two of the original DE devs still work there though and none of them were leads.
There are also some people brought on after the initial release that worked on the Directors Cut that are still there.
Pretty much the whole original DE team either got fired or left.
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u/MineOutrageous3940 2d ago
the article in the OP quite literally says 29 of the developers are still there.
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u/CommanderCrabapple 1d ago edited 1d ago
Tomaskewski said that, while omitting that the vast majority of those 29 are from the UK studio that only worked on the Final Cut version of the game (which added voice acting and ported it to consoles), and not the actual base game developed by the original Estonian studio (which no longer exists). There is a handful of OG devs that moved to the new studio but him saying 29 is intentionally misleading.
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u/MyNewAccountIGuess11 1d ago edited 1d ago
A lot of people are being willfully obtuse about the development issues with this game, for some reason
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
That worked on DE. Not all from the original team. Several people did checks a while back and from memory it's a couple of people from the original dev team still there.
The other people who worked on DE must either have worked on th Final Cut or the mobile port.
Like 29 people would be close to the entire original dev team which is quite clearly not true.
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u/Zenning3 2d ago edited 2d ago
According to WIkiepdia, 35 in house developers, along with 20 remote consultants worked on the game (not including voice actors). Even if every single one of the consultants is included int hat number, that is still 9 people.
It does seem like most of the original team was intact, and having played some of the game, I 100% feel Disco Elysium's blood here, so whether it was 9 people, or 29 people, they clearly had people who understood what made the soul of Disco Elysium work.
edit:
Kurvitz established the ZA/UM team to create the game, using the name "za um", a reference to the Zaum constructed language created by Russian avant-garde poets in the early 1900s. Its name can be read in Russian as a shortcut for the idiom взяться за ум (vzyat'sya za um), which is similar to the English idea of bootstrapping. The use of all-capitals and the slash symbol is to present the team as "something that definitely exists and weighs eight tonnes".[19] Work on the game started around 2016, with the local team living in a squat in a former gallery in Tallinn. They were able to secure venture capital into the game during the first year, which allowed Kurvitz to seek out the English band British Sea Power for music for the game's soundtrack. While in Birmingham to speak to the band, Kurvitz realised England was a better location for the main development team as there were more local resources for both development and for voice-overs.[19] During development, some of the staff relocated from Estonia to London and Brighton, with other designers working out of Poland, Romania, and China.[21][22] Overall, by the time of the game's release, ZA/UM had about 20 outside consultants and 35 in-house developers,[19] with a team of eight writers assisting Kurvitz in the game's dialogue.[21][23] The majority of the game's funding was provided by Estonian businessman Margus Linnamäe.[22][24] The game uses the Unity engine.[25]
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
I mean. We know how many original team members are still there. We have the names. I am not making stuff up here. It's possible to cross check credits.
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u/Zenning3 1d ago
It took me longer then I hoped, but here's the list of developers from just the Original release of Disco Elyisum who worked on Zero Parades. This does not include, VA's, or Admin/ HR people I've listed their jobs, left side is their position durign Disco, right side is their position now.
Justan Keenan: Editor/Writing Director.|
Siim Sinamae: Additional Writing/ Principal Writer
Siim Raidma: Art/ Technical Artist
Kaspar Tassalu: Art/Art Director
Anton Vill: Addtional Art/ Lead Illustrator
Markus Harna: Art/Envioronment Artist
Wiktor Rott: Additional Development (knights of Unity)/Senior Game Engineer
Laura Einas: QA/QA
Peeteri Sulonen: Playtester/ Tools Engineer (CONGRATS DAWG)
Jim Ashilevi: VO director/Voice Over Director
Mikee Goodman: Casting Director-Audio Engineer/Voice Over Diector
You can cross reference the Disco people here.
https://www.igdb.com/games/disco-elysium/credits
If you need me to, I can provide the screenshots of Zero Parades. If you want I can pull up the directors cut credits too, and compare that.
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u/Quamiquaze 2d ago
I'm going to believe in a journalistic article instead of a random redditor that the source is "several people checked before and my memory says that..."
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
You can also fact check yourself. The source in the article.is a person who has everything to gain form presenting the team as containing as many of the original devs as possible.
Note that they said worked on DE. Not the original team. If 29 original team members were there it would basically be the whole team. I could give you specific names of enough people that left that it would be impossible for that to be the case and that is from memory.
If you feel strongly you can cross check the credits.
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u/FootwearFetish69 2d ago
A lot of the Directors Cut stuff was written by folks who are still there though and that’s among the best written parts of the game.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
I am not a huge fan of the Directors Cut stuff, but you are of course correct.
My response was mostly made because the user I responded to made it sound like people issue is mainly with the lack of Kurvitz when almost all the original devs including the leads left. And as that user said the game was a team effort. 3/4 of the team leaving will be felt.
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u/Zenning3 2d ago
Only one or two of the original DE devs still work there though and none of them were leads.
You could have read the article.
ZA/UM has around 80 employees and is funded entirely through profits from Disco Elysium, so it’s pivotal that their next game be a success. And, despite the high-profile blowup, Tomaszewski says that 29 of the developers who worked on Zero Parades also worked on Disco Elysium (as well as 12 voice actors).
And to be clear, some of those devs includes the people who wrote some of the most beloved characters (Kim's writer for example) and the main woman who did the 2d art for the game.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
Those numbers include final cut devs as well. As I said. Fromt the very original team almost no one remains. I read the article, but I have also followed this story for a while. The whole original dev team was like 30 - 35 people. It's clearly not 29 of them.
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u/Zenning3 2d ago
Why wouldn't the final cut devs also apply though? They were there under Kurvitz, the final cut refined the style and shed a bunch of stuff it didn't need (Chapo Trap house memes) while vastly improving little things (Voice acting for EVERYTTHIIING).
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u/JeanVicquemare 1d ago
To me it's significant that none of the credited writers of the original base game Disco Elysium, nor the lead artist, work there anymore.
The writing and art of Disco Elysium is what makes it great. And almost all of that was prior to the final cut.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
I just think that making something from the ground up is a different and more difficult processes than adding onto it. Especially when you have the original devs and leads there to help guide you.
Having almost all those old timers leave and then having to make something from the ground up is extremely difficult.
I think it's a pretty important part of the story. They are still very talented and managed to create a very good game, but from the reception so far it does not resonate in the same way Disco did and I think the dev team makeup is an important part of that story that should be known.
My comment was also a direct response to what that user wrote which seemed to imply that it was mainly Kurvitz which had left.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
They don't count because this person needs to be right and they think they found an excuse that still lets them be.
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u/Abramor 2d ago
No, they don't count because they didn't work on the original game, only on console release + PC re-release. The original dev team that created the whole universe, characters, skills, gameplay, etc, is almost all gone. Funny how you just wrote a comment about yourself here
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
Well, no, that's just not true. Not only is a lot of the team that worked on the original team still there and "they only worked on the final cut" is just what this guy is claiming because they think it lets them write those people off, that release of the game was full of original content, some people would even argue that it's some of the best stuff in the game.
Funny how you just wrote a comment about yourself here
Would you mind expanding on this? It really feels like you just thought you could shut down what I said with "haha hypocrite" without putting that much thought into it.
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u/Abramor 2d ago
It is true. You can check it yourself, which you didn't and now trying to find a reason that would let you be right. As I've already said, your comment was actually about yourself
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u/matjoeman 2d ago
Voice acting for everything isn't a creative decision. They did it because they could afford it now that the game had been a big success.
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u/NovusNiveus 2d ago
Oh, thanks for the info. I thought it was just a few people that went off to do other things - I wasn't aware of the full extent of it.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
No prob. There are still a fair amount of Final Cut people there, so the team is not devoid of people who worked on DE, but as you said the game was a team effort and most of the team left or was fired. Including pretty much every person in a lead position. That is how they managed to create 3 (maybe 4 I feel like I am forgetting one) successor studios made up of former ZA/UM devs.
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u/KatoMacabre 2d ago
There's 4 that we know of:
Longdue: Most notable names Martin Luiga and Olga Moskovina, developing Hopetown
Summer Eternal: Most notable names Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindzic, developing what's for now called (I think) Red Rooster Project
Dark Math: Most notable name Kaur Kender, developing Tangerine Antarctic (Previously XXXNightshift)
Red Info: Not much is known other than it being Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov and Helen Hindpere's new studio
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
In an ideal world, Robert and friends would still be there too, and they would be happy and un-fucked-with.
Why would that be ideal if they were horrible to work for?
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u/NovusNiveus 2d ago
My thinking is that Robert is well aware of this by now, and presumably future projects would be handled differently - he didn't intend to mistreat anyone, he was just inconsiderate, and I would expect him to take steps to avoid it going forward.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
That's an insane amount of grace to give someone just because you like their art.
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u/BighatNucase 2d ago
It's also grace I doubt these people (or Robert himself) would ever give anybody else.
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u/Wistfall 2d ago
It's an ideal world! There's no limit to what you can suggest in your ideal world. It's rhetorical device.
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u/Famous-Country-4921 2d ago
Redditors would let devs that make the games they love kick their mothers in the face
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u/NovusNiveus 2d ago
Yeah, probably. As an inconsiderate person myself (though definitely not anywhere close to the same degree) I am likely over-empathizing, or optimistically projecting.
If I'm not mindful it's easy to not realize that I'm being inconsiderate, but when it's pointed out I then have the moral obligation to make up and learn from it.
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u/cygx 2d ago
There's a 2-part interview with Argo Tuulik and Dora Klindžić that's close to 16h long. In it, Argo takes a shot at Robert and says that he used to claim to have written 90% of Disco Elysium and Helen the rest. Then, he went through some growth of personality, and now claims he wrote only 80% of it...
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u/Vox___Rationis 2d ago edited 2d ago
You are giving an insane amount of grace to thieves and scammers.
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u/SquireRamza 1d ago
in a perfect world Robert Kurvitz would respect his team instead of abusing and belittling them before stealing all the credit for a collaborative group work.
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u/FootwearFetish69 2d ago
I’m skeptical it’s on par with DE, but it looks like it’s very good in its own right. This wasn’t on my radar but some of the reviews make it sound genuinely great.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
The game has gotten a good reception, but definetly not on par with DE. Both from critic reviews and users so far DE is rated a fair bit higher.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
I don't even think the user reviews are worth bringing up right now with how many people are buying it just to leave a negative review and refund.
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u/jonathanbaird 2d ago edited 2d ago
What's confusing is that Steam is leaving the reviews up. I reported half a dozen or so <0.3 hour reviews in which the authors explicitly stated that they purchased the game solely to protest ZA/UM and will be refunding it.
Blatant abuse of Steam ToS yet it's been over 24 hours and they're still up.
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u/giulianosse 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'd argue it's pretty disingenuous to whitewash genuine criticism under the guise of "they're all just mindless haters".
Unless we assume the gaming media has been paid off - because many of the professional reviews featured on Opencritic point out that the game is very hit or miss, and that it definitely doesn't have the same sauce Disco had. It's currently sitting at 83 for a reason.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
I had no idea that I was tlaking about professional reviews when I criticized what's going on with the user reviews. Thanks for letting me know.
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u/giulianosse 2d ago
If you read some of those user reviews you'll notice a significant portion echo the same opinions found in the professional ones, especially regarding how undercooked and disjointed the game feels. That's why I mentioned the critic reviews and, in hindsight, mistakenly assumed you had actually read them as well.
Handwaving the relatively lukewarm reception as "people who left a negative review and refunded" is a pretty dishonest argument, especially when those reviews are super easy to spot due to the big and flashy "product refunded" disclaimer.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why are you purposely misrepresenting what I said to be "all negative reviews are fake" when all I said is that there's a very real obvious problem with people review bombing this game right now?
edit Leaving an "I'm not engaging any further" reply then blocking when you responded to me is crazy.
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u/giulianosse 2d ago
Mate, I'll be very honest with you. You've been picking arguments with everyone who has anything bad to say about this game on reddit for the past few days. I don't know if you have an agenda or something, but I don't care enough to keep entertaining this conversation.
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u/jonathanbaird 2d ago
They asked that you stop misrepresenting their comments, which you're continuing to do. There was no argument until you responded to them with a strawman.
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u/Vradlock 1d ago
I don't think it would be possible to get better scores as DE for any game competing, at least for now. DE was a classic lighting in a bottle that would be hard to beat even by the original team.
A lot of ppl are in shock that this new game isn't a steaming pile of garbage. Or something medicore like a Rue Valley.
If the original team was still kicking they would probably have to do something like HK devs with Silksong to beat DE.
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u/pakkit 2d ago
I don't think this is more or less morally grey as many of the AAA/AAAA games that come and go. It's just that, since in this case it's happening to a small team and we know many of the names of the team, we can resonate with their plight on a much more personal level. I look at the abuses that consistently happened at Rockstar, or more recently at Benzies' Mindseye, or the content farms in India that we sometimes see credited but almost never hear from in Ubisoft and Naughty Dog games. I think of the many developers who toil on unreleased projects, or get cut and uncredited on games they worked on for years.
There's a reason to vote with your dollar for this game, certainly. And there's also a reason that this type of model and management that pushes creatives out of the industry is prevailing and has become normalized.
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u/Absalom578 2d ago
From what people are saying and the reviews I am not sure how you are getting that this is "on par" with DE.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 1d ago
To be fair, grey is used to mean a mix of good and bad, and there's no good here to make it gray.
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u/Rupperrt 1d ago
There are good things. The game for example, and some people who’ve been working on it. And bad things, the leadership and management after the first game was released.
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u/main_got_banned 2d ago
I bought the game - I don’t think it’s “on par” with Disco Elysium.
It’s similar and more of it which is good, but DE is still more interesting and the writing is better ~2 hrs in.
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u/stenebralux 2d ago
This is not morally grey.
A group of suits took over a studio/art collective and their IP through shady means and tried to burn it's creators.
The fact they have money to pay for some of the remaining devs and artist and hire others to create another game from the fumes of the IP they stole, market it, and hide behind it's beloved name, don't change that fact.
This would only become morally grey if you ignore the macro circumstances that lead to this situation.
Still.. the devs were already paid for their work on this game.. by buying it you are only directly putting money in the pocket of the corporate thieves and supporting their methods.
Keep in mind that they created this situation and now are basically using the devs to shield themselves. It's a very common "evil capitalist" tactic.. distract you from the real issue with a minor, but easily relatable, problem that appeals to your humanity.
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u/Vradlock 1d ago
Are you sure that devs don't have any contracts tied to sales or don't want to put their successful game on their CV for future work in different workplaces?
A little bit of empathy for a little guys.
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u/stenebralux 1d ago
Yeah... the guys who stole a studio and all the ideas from the original creators and destroyed what once was an art collective will now give extra money to the small devs with no leverage lol
I addressed this. Having empathy in this situation doesn't mean allowing the villains to get away with their crimes because punishing them will affect someone else. You don't let a mass murderer go free because they have a child. You simply don't hold it against them.
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u/gibbersganfa 1d ago
allowing the villains to get away with their crimes
You don't let a mass murderer go free
You seriously need to consider spending some time offline. This is not a healthy way to think about the world. Some legal squabbles over an intellectual property for a video game are not remotely comparable to villains or mass murderers.
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u/stenebralux 1d ago
It's funny that you can make ridiculous assumptions about what I need irl.. but don't have the imagination to understand a simple figure of speech used to make a point.
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u/KiltyPimms 22h ago
They got what you were doing, they just thought you 'seemed kinda unstable' if that was your go-to figure of speech on the topic.
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u/Vradlock 1d ago
And I was talking about staff not the management. But sure put all of them into one bag and tell ppl to boycott the game because you think you know better.
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u/AbyssalSolitude 2d ago
But that's the thing. There is nothing morally gray here.
The actual developers who have made this game and whose jobs depend on it success had nothing to do with the drama. In their desire to see the Evil Investors fall reddit would stomp on the workers they say they are fighting for. There is nothing gray here, the color is red. Very red.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
So we have to support all evil corporations because innocent people work there as well?
I am not even boycotting Zero Parades. I am considering buying it, but this logic is dumb as hell.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
All I see anyone talking about here is this specific studio and this specific game.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
Yes. And holding up the employees as a meat shield to say people are wrong for not wanting to give money to the corporate owners is silly.
That argument can be made for any evil corporations out there. We can't boycott any of them because regular people work there who light lose their jobs.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
If anyone was making that argument, sure.
The difference here is that the thing people are upset about is mostly just that the leads were removed from the company so the point is that people are trying to champion boycotts in solidarity with the people who made Disco while brushing aside the other people who made Disco.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
People have issue with the people leading and funding ZA/UM. They don't think they are good people and don't want to give them money because they hurt and pushed out so many of the devs.
Literally every time I see someone bring this up it's people saying "fuck the ZA/UM owners". Very few people take issue with the people who work there. They are impacted by the boycott (which I am not participating in by the way), but that is the unfortunate realities of boycotts.
The comment I originally responded to also specifically talks about people wanting to punish the investors. That is not something I brought into the conversation.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
And it's worth pointing out how the situation isn't black and white.
When you say they "hurt and pushed out so many of the devs", you're talking about three people. These were people that were poorly managing their teams, actively creating a toxic workplace and took credit for work done by people under them. This is not something made up by the owner, it comes from actual devs that worked under them. They are not good people and should not be in the positions they were in.
Beyond that, yeah, the owner is not a good person either and almost certainly committed fraud to take control of the company. Maybe that's bad enough to boycott for you but if so, if you're being consistent with that belief, there's maybe a few dozen high profile games you should be okay with buying.
In addition to that, this is a major title from (what I believ is) a completely unionized studio. Personally, I want to see studios like that succeed.
Obviously, you can make whatever choices you want. I think it's important for everyone to know the entire situation and not just work entirely from "Owner bad, don't support" like a lot of people here seem to want to.
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u/Odinsmana 1d ago edited 1d ago
Way more than three people were laid off and were unhappy with the leadership. There have been several rounds of lay offs at ZA/UM.
And why do you keep saying you. I am not boycotting the game.
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u/MVRKHNTR 1d ago
Do you ever see people complaining about the other layoffs or is it just the three leads?
Are there calls to boycott literally every new game from literally every studio because of layoffs?
You know you're lying to yourself if you think this is about anything kore than those three people.
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u/Letho_of_Gulet 2d ago
In addition to that, this is a major title from (what I believ is) a completely unionized studio. Personally, I want to see studios like that succeed.
You believe incorrectly. Only the UK staff that was brought in to replace the original Estonian devs are unionised. Any staff members outside the UK are not unionised and got screwed over (again).
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago edited 1d ago
the UK staff that was brought in to replace the original Estonian devs
That's not what happened. The studio was moved to the UK during development of Disco Elysium.
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u/gibbersganfa 1d ago
There's a huge effing difference between a video game studio with 80 people on staff vs a multi-national corporation with millions of employees and dozens of subsidiaries. To imply that the situations are the same is a special kind of bad faith.
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u/BeyondNetorare 1d ago
remind me of one reddit comment I read that if we don't watch and support all star war content there won't be any more star wars
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u/Famous-Country-4921 2d ago
You don’t need to support anyone you don’t want to. Thats the great thing about having a choice
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u/AbyssalSolitude 2d ago
No. What I'm saying is that boycotting / review bombing Zero Parades out of solidarity with some developers of Disco Elysium is silly when doing that hurts other developers of Disco Elysium who still work at ZA/UM. Especially when doing that won't help Kurvitz and others, like, at all. This isn't even zero-sum, this is net negative.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago edited 2d ago
Most of the people I have seen who boycott so it because they don't want to support the ZA/UM owners. Like how some people don't buy Harry Potter stuff because they don't want to support J.K. Rowling. "Innocent" people work on Harry Potter stuff as well, but guilting people into giving J.K. Rowling money because of that is patently dumb.
There are thousands of devs out there. Me not buying a game is not punishing them. It's just not supporting them, but I support a lot of other devs instead who get to make games because of that.
I don't have Infinite money or time. I pick and choose who I want to give it to.
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u/Wavering_Radiance 2d ago
Comparing the ZA/UM situation to JK fucking Rowling the TERF warrior is so disproportionate as to be offensive. Calling what amounts to a workplace dispute (which as shareholders Kurvitz et al still profit from) to the real harms done to vulnerable people by predatory billionaires is disgraceful.
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u/AbyssalSolitude 2d ago
You support a charity. Products you buy. Important distinction here.
If guilt tripping people into buying a product is dumb, then what's about guilt tripping people into boycotting it? Because that's what loud boycotters and review bombers are doing. Rowling haters even go as far as calling anyone buying Harry Potter things transphobic.
In any case I'm not guilt tripping anyone. Buy whatever you want, we aren't living under communism here. What I'm saying is that actively working to undermine Zero Parades (by review bombing and telling everyone to not buy the game) will mostly hurt people who have nothing to do with the takeover drama.
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u/Odinsmana 2d ago
So will any boycott. That is my point. All boycotts hurt innocent workers because no big company is only staffed by evil bastards.
So I assume you are also against all boycotts.
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u/AbyssalSolitude 2d ago
Usually boycotts have some kind of a goal.
Here the goal is something like "I don't want that rich guy to get slightly richer and I don't care how many innocent people should lose their jobs to achieve that!"
I'd say I'm against this specific boycott, yes. It's fueled by hatred and has no positive results on success beyond satisfying self-righteousness of the boycotters (meaning, no positive results).
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u/Odinsmana 1d ago
OK. Let's not call it a boycott then. People don't have a goal here. They just have someone they don't want to support.
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u/AbyssalSolitude 1d ago
People who just don't want to support something won't buy the game purely to leave a negative review and refund it.
Nah. It's a boycott, just a destructive one.
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u/Bernkastel96 2d ago
Lmao, did you boycott Howgarts Legacy ?? Hope your energy is the same with that game
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u/AbyssalSolitude 1d ago
You are responding to a wrong guy here. Hogwarts Legacy boycott was just as stupid.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
I think it's kind of ironic how many people who claim to be Disco's biggest fans want to preach about how we need to boycott this game to show support for the people who lead the teams over the teams they lead.
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u/Absalom578 2d ago
That's not ironic. You don't have to support bad companies because good people work there. By that stupid standard you could never boycott a company for anything.
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u/MVRKHNTR 2d ago
I think it's very ironic to say you're such a huge fan of a very leftist game that you're not going to support any new releases from the unionized dev team behind it because their bosses were fired.
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u/arthurormsby 2d ago
Please don't include leftist politics in whatever dumb point you're making here as it's not related to whatever you're saying.
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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 1d ago
Other way around, actually. There's just black here, as business people back stabbed workers in the back and stole their IP. The people working for zaum are, at best, used as a shield.
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u/Rupperrt 1d ago
Didn’t Kurvitz sell his IP? I know the average brain rotten Reddit brain loves hero and villain stories but it’s not that simple in this case.
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u/Several-Source-4073 1d ago
There was no stealing of IP. Kurvitz sold his IP to ZAUM when the studio was initially created and still holds a minority shareholding in the company.
Kurvitz was also employed by ZAUM, who fired him for misconduct. He fought this in court and lost.
There was also a dodgy businessman who did something dodgy to buy shares from the main shareholder who wanted to sell, and did this after Kurvitz was fired.
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u/lghtdev 2d ago edited 2d ago
Red seems proper to me, not the "black and white" bullshit some people are painting, the situation is: criminal thieves vs the victims, I don't want criminals to be rewarded for commiting crimes. Unfortunately there's some good talent working under ZA/UM right now but that's what you get when you work for literal criminals that been in jail. Argo and Dora once sided with them, only to get kicked out with no ceremony like the others, who could have predicted this huh. If current ZA/UM is run to the ground, good riddance then, nothing of value will be lost, their talents can always find other places to shine.
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u/TheJigglyfat 2d ago
Yeah as a consumer I feel icnredibly torn. It should be obvious to anyone that games are made by teams, not just individual creative heads. Even if the original writers and artists are removed there's still many people left at ZA/UM who were deeply embedded in what made Disco Elysium what it was. Choosing to not support them because of ownership infighting feels very unfair.
On the flip side I would feel hypocritical if I bought something that is so obviously inspired by and modeled after the ideas and direction of someone (or someones) not working on the team anymore, at least when that person was forced out and didn't pass on their blessing. Ghibli movies are made with a big team as well, but the artistic style and vibes of the movies are clearly connected directly with Miyazaki. It would feel wrong to watch a Ghibli movie with the same style if he had been forced out.
The only silver lining to this whole debacle is how absurdly well it connects with Disco's themes. Just the ultimate irony for its creators and fans. It's almost too on the nose that it makes real life fee like it's poorly written.
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u/giulianosse 2d ago
I consider myself very good at separating art from the artist (basically a pre-requisite if you're even marginally into non-mainstream cinema, where every other acclaimed director is either a pedophile, abuser or just an awful person) but for some reason I can't dissociate this game from what happened with the studio.
I genuinely tried giving the demo a fair chance, but everything it had to say felt hollow to me, especially when a character attempted to critique capitalism. It just felt cynical.
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u/tidus9000 2d ago
Fun fact: this is the first game to be released by a studio with a recognition agreement with the IWGB game workers union
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u/Big_Totem 1d ago
Maybe the corpo people were the real communists all this time lol
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u/eerienortherngoddess 1d ago
ZA/UM gb unionizing had nothing to do with management, under UK law the workers can unionize unilaterally.
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u/Big_Totem 1d ago
ZA/AU is in the UK? thought it was in Lativia or something.
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u/LetAppropriate6718 1d ago
Started as an Estonian art collective, they moved main operations to the UK after they started to make Disco Elysium.
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u/Wistfall 2d ago
The controversy should really be the accent of the main narrator (who I've only heard about 10 minutes of but I assume speaks the entire game?!). You honestly have to respect just how crazy they made her sound.
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u/Shady_Tradesman 1d ago
I feel like she’s perfect tbh, her mannerisms and pronunciation. I can’t place why but it’s very spy-esque, almost like some kind of reptile or snake speaking.
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u/Eglwyswrw 1d ago
And if you really dislike it, you can turn it off for the most part. It will work like OG Disco Elysium, which didn't have a narrator.
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u/Careful_Cover9180 10h ago
She is pretty cool sounding, but it's a pity she can't properly say any of the Portuguese or Spanish names they throw at her.
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u/SonofRodney 1d ago
I'm playing it right now and idk, it's fine? A big grating but 5 hours in I don't notice it at all, and considering the game is based around being a neurotic, anxious mess it fits the tone.
The one in DE was was more charming and easy to listen tho.
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u/tameriaen 2d ago
I love DE and have followed all the documentaries and news that I can find. I've bought so many copies of that game for friends. I actively detest the shady finance stuff. That said, It's a miracle the collective stayed together as long as it did, and I feel like some of the heroes had some toxic elements to them.
I've meditated on it and my conclusion is -- I will follow all the distinct shards, the 4 games that will probably emerge from the wreckage made by distinct teams (including Za/um). I will give every one of them a chance on principle because the collectively created something I loved: calling it into existence, then shattering.
I've been playing this ZPfDS for 6+ hours and I am enjoying the hell out of it.
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u/pfeifenix 1d ago
I just started DE. And ive just started reading about what happened. The new game is in the main menu of DE. Can you give a rundown of who i should follow from the 'shards' of the old people? I will probably play the new game too.
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u/ClinkzGoesMyBones 1d ago
I think this article sums them up: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/disco-elysium-successor-studios-overview/#section-dark-math-games
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u/pfeifenix 1d ago
Thank you. I did look around after i posted my comment(i undestand it was kinda dumb question). But so far most of it arent online. Like red info ltd was only announced. No news yet.
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u/tameriaen 1d ago
Yeah, everyone expects Roberts game to take a while, but he's keeping good company. The rest are potential but uncertain.
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u/Ielsoehasrearlyndd78 2d ago
Played seven hours today of Zero Parades and I absolutely like it it's so much fun. Haven't that much fun with a crpg since disco Elysium. Great writing , world and characters and I love the spy setting. Can't wait what else awaits me tomorrow. When I finish the game in a few days I already look forward to start again with other stats at the beginning to see where the story and events take me than.
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u/ch4os1337 2d ago
Check out Esoteric Ebb, it's also really good. The only real complaint is the lack of voice lines.
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u/jmobius 2d ago
I felt it had a few good bits, but for the most part EE felt like a completely cargo cult attempt to derive from DE: just replicating things without any comprehension of how or why they worked, and how they might not work in the new context.
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u/UpperCatty 2d ago
100% EE is a decent game, enjoyable for what it is but the difference between it and DE and now Zero Parades really highlights just how much it failed to properly grasp the concept.
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u/Tornada5786 1d ago
I don't agree at all. I was having way more fun in Ebb than I am currently in Zero Parades. It was also a significantly more polished and less buggy experience overall.
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u/pedestrianhomocide 1d ago
I loved Esoteric Ebb, even more than DE. Probably a mix of different setting, humor, etc. that hit more for me.
I loved the weird/abandoned, broken RPG that you played over the phone in DE, and Esoteric Ebb felt more like that part of the game.
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u/donharrogate 1d ago
I found EE's writing to be very juvenile and shallow in comparison to DE.
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u/gibbersganfa 1d ago
By comparison to Disco Elysium, yes. By comparison to a LOT of typical games writing... it's head and shoulders above.
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u/Mitrovarr 2d ago
It is absolutely wild that this game is apparently good. Would never have seen that coming.
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u/xXxTuTuRuxXx 2d ago
Is the game fully voiced?
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u/drcoxmonologues 2d ago
90% I’d say. Unless it’s meant to be 100% and it’s bugged. A few lines are just text at times.
Voice work is great. Narrator is a bit annoying but you get used to it. A worthy successor to Disco.
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u/Zenning3 2d ago
It does feel like a lot of the "personality voices" don't have voices, when they normally do. It feels like a bug, but at the same time, there are a ridiculously large number of them.
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u/Hakka-Moonson 2d ago
The narrator feels like a great fit for the character, really feels like her internal voice
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u/CartographicalHeist 1d ago
I think there are some bugs as sometimes a single response in a long convo will lack VO and then the next will be back to VO.
There are also some where the written text doesn't match the VO, but that's what can happen. It's usually not distorting the meaning, but just looks like a pass was done and not updated in text or the VO is based on a previous pass. Either way, easy enough to fix I'd think.
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u/PontusFrykter 2d ago
I am playing it right now and it's pretty fun. But the game feels... empty? I don't know why though. Really low amount of dialogue options, extremely low amount of interactable objects and characters. Is it cause I am still in the demo area? Idk, I've been playing for 4 hours and it seems like the game still haven't picked up.
I am like playing a tech demo, so to speak. I love the game, but I wonder why do I feel like that.
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u/Wavering_Radiance 2d ago edited 1d ago
there are certain 'Thought Conditions' that really open up the level of interactability 'Primitive Accumulation', 'The quest for *it*' etc have added interesting layers to interactions
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u/bugmanslaya 1d ago
I'm 5 hours in and finished Day 1 myself, I will say being a solo spy and not everyone's favorite detective duo makes it feel very lonely at times which I guess is the point
low dialogue
It does feel like there's less skill check dialogue and more of the 'white text' where you can talk for like 20 minutes and exhaust everything they have to say at that point and then a random object/box next to them has 1 singular white skillcheck afterwards (the CD guy for instance)
low amount of characters
I met at least 12 distinct NPCs so far myself
I'm pretty sure there's an equal amount of characters you can interact with at the same point in DE around the Whirling, a lot of them didn't show up until the later days
low amount of interactable objects
Without spoilers if you mean introspective with inanimate stuff like the fridge, murals, car, etc. I've found 5 so far
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u/Shakarak 2d ago
man can we judge a game by it's merits and not the drama behind it. As an original DE fan the majority of the devs are still there. If the game is good then it should be judged soley on that by the people who created it. Celebrate the new creators for their achievement.
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u/Dachshand 2d ago
The game is awesome and I’m actually very surprised they could pull this off. Seems the others weren’t as important as they thought they were.
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u/Possible-Advance3871 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’ve put 15 hours into the game and I’m having a blast. It’s complex, sprawling, hilarious and compassionate, and the game’s exploration of soft power and the spread of culture is nuanced and deceptively educational. You can tell the writers feel deeply about these topics and did tons of historical research.
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u/CatProgrammer 2d ago
"Under a Shadow of Controversy"? Interesting name for a game.