Two things can be true at once: 1) Robert can be a creative genius that is a bully and a terrible boss to work under. 2) Ilmar (along with other shareholders) stole the company from right under Robert's and Rostov's noses and are using these claims of bullying to make their firing look less suspicious.
It is an incredible testament to the creative process behind Disco Elysium that even after being wronged and feeling hurt, Argo said that he wishes everyone including Robert could have some sort of split of the rights to create within their shared universe of Elysium. Really just reminds me how terribly cruel copyright ownership can be to creative teams like this who are qually as invested in their projects as their leaders are.
Almost as if everyone involved in the work should have an equal say in how the work is produced. Some sort of worker control of the means of production. Because I'll be honest, as much as Kurvitz says he's a communist, it feels rather hollow when there are so many other people who worked at ZA/UM who had so much less control over the company and IP than he did. Other capitalist shareholders took the most, through at least underhanded if not outright illegal means. He still hoarded control to himself and close friends instead of trusting all his fellow workers.
@@Minihood31770 I probably have a different perspective than many, not being a creative of any type myself, but it seems so often that people forget that intellectual property is private property too, and exists so it can be exploited for profit. I haven't finished the video yet, but I think yours are very similar to the impressions I'll come away with.
Out of everyone speaking in this interview, his words were definitely the ones that hit the hardest for me. As a former friend, close to the creation process of DE before it was even a game, his was a position most prone to be resentful and spit venom, and he _still_ defended Robert's claim to the IP, even as he criticised him. It genuinely broke my heart to see.
Several things seem very true all at once: - Robert loved his world very much and wanted control over it, perhaps to the point where he tried to take some things with him that he legally had no right to - Robert was at times cruel to his writers and deeply incompetent in his leadership role even outside of the crunch period - Crunch deeply affected Robert, Helen and Roslov and maybe did significant damage - Helen was pushed off a glass cliff. She was promoted or acknowledged as a lead, then upper management barely communicated with her and said things that weren't in line with reality, so she did not do as good a job as she could have - Robert, Roslov and Helen weren't very post launch and final cut ended up being made by the people under them - Ilmar Kompas has made some extremely shady deals and found a way to exploit people recovering from intense burnout into signing away their rights - Some of the people who made Disco Elysium will now forever be cut off from the thing they made. Even if a sequel is made and they end up with some stake in the IP, they can never work on it again and they have no ownership over anything they actually made. And that is just very sad.
this. i get that ppl might complain about equivocation or sneer at the "centrist" take, but pointing out that multiple parties could be at fault here should come as no surprise. We're talking about humans working together for 5 or so years on a single project. Show me a man that hasn't done something dumb, petty or evil in a year's time.
@@TheNSJaws"Show me a man who hasn't done something dumb, petty, or evil in a year's time" is one of THE quotes. Seriously, that's some well-said shit - you should be proud of how much I'm gonna steal it from you. Oh jeez, that's kinda the whole situation here isn't it? I swear, I didn't mean to - I was just making a joke. But really, that's a very quotable line you have there.
@@gabby3036 by all means, if I can give you a green light to steal I would. But as it stands, you'll have to use it as your yearly bad deed. I'm sure there's worse ways to cash in your karma.
It's like something out of a really lame and boring tv show. Totally unbefitting of anarcho-communist auteurs with advanced conceptions of worker employer relations. One thinks that one of the first actions the core team would have done is to to make the company some kind of cooperative or something, the hierarchical structure of the company basically made it so that tensions and hostilities were inevitable.
@@brandonmorel2658 I always thought ZA/UM was a cooperative, specially with the "ZA/UM cultural association" thing I just assumed there was no chance they were a regular ass company
@@brandonmorel2658 not to totally absolve the ZA/UM guys, but they needed capital from 1 of the richest people in Estonia and several other business people to even fund the project, if it hadnt been for their money the project wouldnt have even happened. We see once again why systems are more powerful than individuals, its hard to make a more egalitarian work structure when you need money which is held by institutions and individuals who will definitely not cooperate with this, as they are only looking after their own financial self interest. "Capital has the ability to subsume everything under itself" etc
Something that really stood out to me is the way in which it *appears* Tõnis is avoiding having to repay a settlement for defrauding people, by having his partner be a shareholder instead of him, to hide his money from the Estonian government. When interviewing Ilmar, Ilmar's response to this was to say that: 1) This arrangement was in place before he took control of the company 2) "Everyone had agreed to it", ie, this isn't something that he did behind the backs of the shareholders that are suing him. 3) After he gained control of the company, the payments through Studio 38 stopped (but, presumably the proxy shareholder situation remains the same) ...but what the heck kind of defense is that?!? It kinda sounds like what he's saying here is: "Yes, we ARE helping our friend Tõnis avoid repaying the money he legally owes for defrauding people, through a sketchy and potentially illegal scheme... but don't worry! Everyone here agreed to do that, not just me!" Am I crazy, or is this a **huge** thing to just gloss over? It kinda feels like the people running this company were complicit in helping Tõnis hide his income/shares from the Estonian courts. Which, if true, speaks to lax morals and an extremely sketchy way of doing business on the part of everyone involved in running this company. *EDIT:* I don't mean to criticize PMG by saying that this was "glossed over". I suspect PMG had very good reasons for not saying something that could be construed as an accusation of illegal activity. The UK has very strict libel laws, after all. Which is why I wanted to make a comment pointing it out!
But they feel as though it's justified because the "scandal" happened because of the financial crash rather than criminal intent, and that outsiders wouldn't understand the nuance because the primary Estonian news source on it is owned by one of the aggrieved parties. Not saying that justification checks out cuz i dont know emough either way and dont care, just that I understand why they don't think of themselves as criminals.
I think perhaps the reason why People Make Games in particular glossed over it is because it wasn’t relevant to the situation actually being discussed, and pressing Ilmar on it further runs the risk of the interview being less productive due to fear or whatever that Ilmar would feel as a result. A generally important story, but only as relevant as People Make Games made it to the Disco Elysium story in particular.
Only 48 mins on but deeply obsessed with Ilmar being asked if he understands the weird ethics of the shareholder situation and just saying "well you can't hold things from his past against him, also all the shareholders agreed on it. No I can't prove that"
I mean, Helen Hindepere isn't any better on subject. When confronted with the same statement by 3 people including 2 of the writers that she didn't do any substantial work on Final Cut, all she has to say is that she is happy she worked with those people and she is open to communication. Basically dodging the whole accusation.
"well you can't hold things from his past against him" Yes. Yes I can. He's a smug and self-admitted debt dodger. Belongs in prison and his dispersed and hidden assets confiscated ruthlessly and used to pay his debts. And he should be thankful if that's the worst that happens to him. Anyone that dodgy probably owes money to folks who would think nothing of turning him into literal dog food as an object lesson. How he's still walking around without a cane is beyond me.
Lol yeah it's super weird and sketchy but my fuck does the main dude sound awful as well, especially for someone that's supposed to be for "worker rights". It seems like he's really obsessed with ownership, which goes against a ton of what he apparently believes. Which is even weirder that he tried to steal the IP he willingly sold to the company for compensation.
I'm going to go and disagree. I thank them for the interviews and the access but... But the whole thing is a mess and kind of bias. A timeline of events was needed, my blood boil, everytime I saw the Justin Keenan guy, calling the writing leads lazy, and criticizing them to go on vacation, but the context it lacks is that this happens after the fucking release of the game, after a fucking crunch. Have you guys never been on a long project? And now of course he gets Robert's job. His interview added nothing but "Robert bad" without the real context. And then we have the final thoughts of the video: "I don't know, Robert hurt the feelings of some workers and didnt care much for them, so It's fine if he loses his IP, I guess" NOICE
Okay, I work in financial analysis for an international company and, in situations with missing context and messy books, the cleanest narrative you tend to be able to paint is “Was this transaction, listed here, registered there?” In the case of Kaur’s accusation of Ilmar, regardless of how the case shook out, we can ask: did Ilmar pay back the amount Kaur accused him of (essentially) embezzling? If the answer is yes, that payment is tantamount to an admission of Kaur’s accusation. As Kaur suggested; if Ilmar paid back money earned legitimately from the company, but only did so after borrowing money from the same company in order to gain the position to accrue that wealth, that’s fraud. Straight up. It really is the Gordian Knot of cases, when you look at the numbers. Regardless of controversy, were the funds used to acquire a majority legitimate? If not, Ilmar’s committed a crime. And, you know, given his history…
Very elucidating, the crux of the matter is whether a financial crime/fraud was committed or not, the rest is smokes and mirrors to distract from that.
@@esilva032 Pretty much. Listen, we can legislate whether or not Kurvitz is a misogynist, and whether the leadership at the top of the team are responsible for a toxic work environment - hardly going to take long for *that* debate - but we can do so *after* we determine if a crime’s been committed, and whether the people we think are a bit shitty own the property they helped create.
Exactly my conclusion. But I have a doubt which I hope someone can clarify. 1. The decison to agree to selling the company IP for 1 dollar and then the same company buying it back for 4.8 Million is green lit by which individual/group of individuals? Who has the final say in selling the IP? Exploring that connection will add more light to the fraud done by Kompas (imo, I think he clearly comitted fraud).
@@sarthakmishra1415 Kinder was director and approved of it, from the sounds of it in this video he probably signed off on it without realizing what exactly he had signed off on which is why he dumped his initial court case against Ilmar because it would make him look like an idiot and likely alienate him further from the collective he had joined. If it was pointed out in court he would have very publicly lost credibility and status with them. I'm fairly certain he sold out because he still got caught on that in the end as evident by him switching sides and then going silent.
I can't draw conclusions only from interviews but I felt Argo's pains during his intervention. He seems genuinely hurt by the whole situation. It also seems to this day he is still processing what happened.
I don't remember if it was in this or in the full interview, but he mentioned how he is a lot less affected then many of his peers who received death threats and such, because he doesn't have any internet presence.
Yeah, I believe the inclusion of Argo's interview is probably one of the most important sources of information in this whole interview circus. Argo's honesty is incredibly clarifying and illuminating and you can tell he still struggles emotionally with the fallout to this day. Where Argo was honest about the unhealthy dynamic from the strict and unyielding leader-follower relationship he had developed with Robert to the point that his wife was concerned really added important context to the story. This allowed my understanding of the relationship between Robert and Rostov to make sense. At some point Robert was questioning Rostov's ability to be the art lead and tried to get him removed from his post (and actually succeeded), but then strangely enough, he later riled Rostov back up AGAIN in order to get him to help them both take back their original leadership roles. Rostov seems to have just gone with it and I wouldn't be surprised if Rostov and Robert currently still have that dynamic. It's no surprise to me that Robert probably has a very charming personality, which gets people to follow him naturally. This sort of thing usually also allows him to be cruel to others and have that cruelty be tolerated without imploding the group. As a leader, Robert has a lot of work to do in order to do a better job of building a company because dismissing the hard work of others without providing any sort of guidance other than "I don't like it. It's trash. Go do it again." is totally useless. Robert contributed a lot of ideas to this project but was an active hindrance against the development of ideas from his team. Not only that, but he manipulated the newer members of the team by dangling admission to the "in-group" (this sort of behavior is incredibly toxic) like a carrot when it was obvious that he had no intention of honoring it. This is something for which he needs to take responsibility. No man is an island. Everyone needs help at some point. Nobody undertakes a project of this magnitude alone. It surprises me that Robert has such little gratitude for the team who helped him bring his ideas to life. (Note: I am not counting Kaur, Ilmar, Margus, and Anu in any of this. The issue with those individuals are massive but constitute another topic entirely.)
@@pnpgutterfold Agreed. Robert very much gives me the vibe of someone with a "reality distortion field", as they called it back in the day. That doesn't mean he's *wrong* on the material facts of the legal battle, but he definitely doesn't have the moral high ground he thinks he does. For all that he talks about "asking himself" whether or not he's good to work with, I don't think he's ever seriously confronted what a good teammate looks like, let alone made progress on achieving it.
@@pnpgutterfoldthe whole removing Rostov and then riling him up and invigorating him to gain his position back is something I'd feel only the Claire's could pull off, with how ridiculous and unfair it is.
That second interview was heartbreaking to watch. You can just see the stress and struggle the guy is ging through while retelling everything. I don't know if this is because the events themselves were stressing, or talking bad about people he (used to) look up to stresses him.
Also the fact that he doesn't even seem to realize that this was toxic behavior is incredibly sad to me. You see him describing in detail moments of public humiliation and bullying that very obviously deeply affected him and when pushed on if it was toxic behavior he's only like "Oh I guess you could say that this probably was toxic" Like this to me points to the fact that this wasn't an isolated incident, this happened so many times that he internalized it as normal.
@@davbou It sounds like a good thing he has his wife. "She said I was sliding into follower mentality again," later ,"The abuse made us better at following his vision".
@@davbou the full interview with him provides additional context. In short, by Argo's admission, he felt Alexander Rostov was the one fucked over the most. Rostov was another someone caught in Robert's orbit without the cognizance to escape - a reflection of Argo's younger self. Furthermore, Argo asserts that the needs of the company (and its 100 some-odd employees) are greater than those of Robert. I don't think Argo Tuulik normalized anything. I feel he recognizes his circumstances as extraordinary and is, at present, grateful for them.
I fully believe that Robert Kurvitz was a nightmare to work for, especially during a crunch period. I can also fully believe that when the game turned into a big success he checked out and did very little work for a while. But the timeline according to Ilmar Kompas makes no sense. If he did no work for two years, then how was he making the work environment so toxic? You literally can't yell at people if you're not around. They were clearly happy to tolerate his behaviour when it was making them money. It only became a problem when they started to get into a conflict about the buy-out. And their explanation of the buy-out shenanigans amounts to 'trust me bro'. My hunch is that Kompas absolutely did steal the company, but had been saving up ammunition in advance to use against Kurvitz in order to give him a pretext to fire him if necessary, and muddy the waters afterward. None of that justifies Kurvitz' behaviour towards his colleagues, but that behaviour still falls a long way short of criminal... unlike fraud. The use of the word 'toxic' is unhelpful, as it's a very vague term that people inevitably view through the filter of their own experiences. It can mean anything from being a bit passive-aggressive or domineering through to full-fledged criminal abuse, and the overall effect is that when they hear it a lot of people tend to either assume the absolute worst or dismiss the allegations entirely, depending on their personal politics, rather than take a more balanced look at the claims.
Also consider that many of these people were friends with Robert for decades prior, I could imagine that the stress of A) working on a personally meaningful game for five years and B) feeling like your co-shareholder is messing you around, could absolutely make someone burnt out, and when people are burnt out, that's also when they start snapping and being a prick to other people.
I agree with this 100%. I think the video does a poor job about focusing on literal criminality vs Robert's potentially crappy but obviously non-criminal behavior. If the Kompus takeover did not happen, and Robert ultimately was fired for being so disagreeable and unable to be worked with, then there would be no drama. Ultimately, if Kompus' shady actions are targeted and dealt with, then these workers and artists can solve or handle their personal disputes however they see fit, and it won't really be any of my business.
@@solidpython4964 I disagree about the video's focus. I think they did a really good job thoroughly exploring all of the allegations that have been made, and you have to consider that some of those allegations are around why Robert was fired. Since we can't know exactly what Kompus was thinking and what his reasoning was, only what people say, it's a very responsible thing to take a look at if any of anyone's claims could be true, and that includes examining the possibility validity of "Robert was fired because of misconduct." Also, PMG isn't a team of lawyers, they would be unqualified to weigh in on if the exchanges were criminal or not, especially in an ongoing court case.
@@sydneygorelick7484 I mean I'm not asking for that, but the original given reason of IP theft doesn't seem to get as much focus as the later revised reason of toxicity. It seems rather obvious that Robert was very easy to pin as difficult to work with, and he definitely seems like that kind of obtrusive tortured artist who disrupts normal collaborative work. But there seems to be a clear possibility that this is the excuse after some shady suspect stuff went down. And to be fair, it goes both ways, where Robert and Aleksander seem to be focusing on their dismissal as a web of conspiracy and not because of legitimate work reasons. But it felt like 2/3 of the run-time was focused on he-said-she-said work dispute drama and not really on the material issues presented by the corporate takeover. Feels like wires are crossed here, and it is not clear at all why or if these 2 threads are even related.
@@sydneygorelick7484 doesn't matter what he was fired for. This is a criminal act and theft of IP vs some guy maybe being a bad boss and trying to sway the public opinion of him so people will buy the next ZAUM game.
This is definitely a story thats happening on 2 very different levels. One is the theft of an entire company by corrupt financiers, and the other is cultural issues within the company. The theft seems to be entirely unrelated to the internal culture of the studio. Definitely give Robert some credit for his statement that the culture and personal issues that plauged the company are now being used to justify the theft. Of course, the biggest victims of all this is the employees and honestly if Robert does manage to get back the company him and his core team need to really think about how they're gonna restructure how leadership and creative credit is handled.
The way I see it they're not so disconnected. The disempowering of Robert's lead team seemed to happen not long after the takeover. It's entirely possible they saw the creators as unmanageable, and pulled some underhanded and possibly illegal moves to manage it. As a matter of fact, I bet that's what happened. The investor gets a personal interest in his investment, realizes the genius creator is... best as a solo writer to put it mildly, and starts looking for ways to get rid of the guy. If he's already being shady with the studio 38 stuff, he'll be more than happy to use shady tactics to remove what he sees as the nut job ruining his business
@@mikek6298 It's morally different, though, in the sense that neither justifies the other. Robert was an asshole because of his own personal issues and the company was stolen because the investor is a capitalist ghoul.
I think if Robert and Helen were better leaders they would have been able to get the others to follow them to another company. And the team being ready to follow them would cause Ilmar to have to make a deal where those two could remain leads if he wanted to make more DLC or a sequel that fans would accept. But it appears the rest of the team weren't willing to continue working under Robert and Helen. And Robert wasn't willing to stick around with less control. Speaking of Ilmar, I would have really liked to see him be made to lay out exactly what the "transaction" that he refuses to call a loan was if it was not a loan. If it was a payment for the delivery of something of value to all of the shareholders he should say exactly what that value was if he wants us to believe that it wasn't loan or even outright theft of ZA/UM money. I'd have also liked to hear precisely what Studio 38 did to earn the money it received. Because if Studio 38 didn't provide value equal to money paid, it looks like money being paid under the table to Tonis.
The documentarist is not offended by possible financial fraud or creative theft. He is far, far, far more offended that the subject of the documentary was angry and bitter about having this life's work stolen from him, didn't appreciate that the documentary was a set of jangling keys, and refused to participate in his game. The documentarist then finished his investigation with a personal complaint of how rude Kurvitz was to him, and portrayed this as the ultimate Gotcha! of the investigation.
@@Hammerzeiterrrr I think they're trying to do a moderationist, "both sides are wrong" kind of argument where he needs to present the perceived extremes as immoral and ignoring the true victims, the workers. Very moralist of him, i suppose.
I think an interesting thing to consider here is how much of Robert and co's mismanagement seemed to stem pretty directly from higher management (in particularly Kaur). Not defending or justifying their actions in any way at all, but it really stuck out to me that Justin complained that Helen wasn't communicating deadlines to the writers, but Helen later says that she herself wasn't kept in the loop about when deadlines were (at around 1:40:00 she mentions being told of the writing lock with only 2 weeks notice by Kaur), and it seems like what she understood her role as lead writer was was considerably different than what others took it to be. There's also Robert talking about how the deadlines were all coming through from upper management, which were responsible for the crunch - which seems really believable to me. I think something which I haven't seen talked about a lot is how the 2 years where Robert and Rostov "checked out" seems to coincide pretty closely with when the shareholder situation started to sour. Again, I'm not excusing it because I can see it being extremely frustrating for people like Justin and Kaspar to have to pick up the slack when their supposed bosses weren't doing much of anything, but it seems to me like Robert in particular would have been wrapped up in all the legal/corporate stuff around that time which would've made it far more difficult to work in a writers capacity. This on top of the general managerial/VO stuff which seemed to be what Helen was dealing with for the most part over that time. It's speculative, but it just adds another level to me of how this whole issue really is just such a mess of conflicting reports. Ultimately though, I'm still pretty firmly on the side of Ilmar (and to a lesser extent Kaur) being scumbags. When Robert describes how Kaur and Ilmar talked him into signing over the IP rights to ZA/UM permanently, its hard to not read that as two professional businessman taking advantage of the fact that the owner of a valuable IP wasn't particularly business savvy. Robert obviously should have gotten legal representation before making such a massive decision, but the fact that the repercussions weren't communicated to him by people claiming to be looking out for his best interest is pretty scummy to me (even if it isn't technically illegal)
@@pnpgutterfold Yeah I agree 100%. The more I’ve looked into this since I wrote this comment originally, the more I reckon Kaur got off very, very lightly here and it’s kind of soured me a little on the video a whole - there’s a brief mention of him having a “chaotic role” in the story early on, but after that there’s little direct examination of his actions, motivations, or responsibility in what a clusterfuck the whole situation became. I feel that’s in part because he didn’t want to be a part of the video so maybe PMG didn’t feel comfortable focusing too heavily on him without getting his side of the story (as that does seem to be a driving motivation behind this video more broadly), but I don’t really think you can do that when he’s so clearly driving a huge amount of the conflict here.
There is a special breed of businessman in Eastern Europe which have something i call 'chronic scheming'. They learned they way of doing business in late soviet union or in 90-es, when system where non-functional, incredibly unwieldy and corrupt, so doing business was inevitably tied to using combinations shady schemes to work through loopholes. Some of them basically unable to think about business model without scheming it around the corners of the legality even if it's is not actually more convenient or profitable. Also, Robert does not seem to completely comprehend that creation of the game is a team effort and being a lead is also about people and processes not only about his creative vision. Likely as someone who does not seem to respect his own well-being in pursuit of creative goals he don't respect others well-being in pursuit of *his* creative goals.
This is exactly why real journalists have ethical standards that would prevent them from pursuing a story that was clearly being interfered with by one side like this. Ilmar pressured his employees into speaking up in spite of them preferring to speak off the record. PMG chased the story past the proper trail of evidence and got led down a rabbit trail
you have a very good point which many tend to ignore. the original team took responsibility for the whole project and the whole set of poor mortgage-burdened employees all the way until they no longer could there is a difference between nuance and grasping for straws where it is easy, because you can't pose the hard questions. ilmar got away without being confronted with a clear timeline, yet robert was tossed into a gallery of broken relationships that he obviously feels strongly about maybe next time People Make Games should cover corporate mergers, and not the video game industry. or just go work for the sun
Coming from a huge fan of the video game, I had little to no idea of what the behind-the-scenes drama looked like. Thank you for this. You’re doing amazing work. ❤️
"Dora Klindžić broadly echoed Tuulik’s sentiment: “I've seen good work done at ZA/UM. I've also seen management and production staff terrorizing creatives, lying, playing power games, turning people against each other, destroying relationships and people's self-esteem. For this, there have been no repercussions.” She also emphasized that some workers would not only lose their jobs, but would have to upend their whole lives as a result of the layoffs: “As a reward for our hard work, some of us are even slated to lose our immigration status in the UK and will have to evacuate the country. We will be gone by next week, but those who remain are grappling with a place irrevocably changed. “The mask has slipped from the face of capital. What remains at ZA/UM is a cold, careless company where managers wage war against their own creatives, where artistry is second to property, and where corporate strategy is formed by an arrogant disdain for their own audience.”"
Amazing how ilmar always has enough personal money in the amounts of millions to makes all those purchases, but the only amount to have officially been recorded is 300,000. Which which which... well, it's a more logical amount for a man on his position, at that time, to have in savings. Also he dismisses questions about ethics regarding the decisions by saying "well, Robert was aware too" or "it was all in the benefit of the group". Doesn't make it less illegal mate, just goes to show how quickly you're willing to throw someone else under the bus.
Also very convenient that "we were a small company" and "the meetings weren't recorded" is used in a transaction of millions of euros when I've worked in (smaller) companies where transactions of $5000 were heavily documented.
I mean, devil's advocate argument, a businessman addressing a loose group of punk, communists. They probably don't care, or care enough to understand so why record it for posterity? I don't necessarily agree with that take but could be a logical conclusion.
@@ClockworkGFX it's also a well known business person conducting several loans, and sales and re-sales in units of millions. You'd think he'd have documentation about it.
Even though this is obviously a very heavy and unpleasant topic, I have to say I'm so glad to be seeing more of the faces behind this game! The team always seemed to be very non-public facing, so there wasn't honestly a lot of detailed info around on who these people were and where they came from. Hearing things about their history and who was doing what in the game's development from people like Argo is great, because the only voices that have ever really been present so far have been Robert, Helen (and Aleksander). Evrart Claire is amazing! Cuno is amazing! Now, obviously the work was being done under the creative vision of Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere, so they should get a lot of credit for that, but everyone else was also clearly putting in a hefty amount of creative energy as well!
I’m no expert but I’m not sure that being bad managers is as big of an issue as Illmar buying ip for 1 euro, selling it back for 4.5 million euros, and then buying majority share of the company without written agreement or documentation of the other shareholders
Yeah, the false equivalency here is staggering. Video tries so hard to be fair to both sides that it just ends up muddying the waters. From what it looks and is alleged, the CEO defrauded the company and used company funds to buy shares for himself to then oust the remaining "minority" shareholders. His only defense is "yeah there's no paper trace on the shareholders signing up on this bc we're such a small and inexperienced bunch" and "my contribution was much larger than 1 quid, but I'll not tell you any details about that" -- and the interviewer left it at that? Bringing in the other team members to talk about hardships during development and perceived personality flaws isn't nuance, it's pretty much irrelevant.
Well, Ilmar couldn't say anything else for legal reasons, and it's exactly what Kurvitz did as well when he said that he does not want the interview to be fully released. Also, I beg to differ, the problems encountered during the development were pretty important. For a community that keeps bashing on ZA/UM and their employees for stealing Kurvitz's work, it's important to show that in fact, DE is not entirely Kurvitz's work and that people working at ZA/UM were also part of the creation of the game. I don't think the video was made in order to resolve legal disputes, but rather to show DE's community a bigger picture of the situation
There are two events here that bear investigation: 1) Ilmar's acquisition of a majority stake in the company. 2) Robert et al.'s firing. The first issue is a legal one, and it is hard to know all of the facts. It seems shady and morally problematic at best, illegal at worst (I struggle to imagine how a 1 pound IP becomes worth over 4 million without becoming an actual produced game first, no matter what contributions Ilmar claims to have made). Even if everyone knew it was happening, that doesn't make it not shady. And I don't honestly believe that Ilmar is the kind of guy to not keep records, if the records would benefit him--I would certainly not deal in millions of pounds without clear records of the process, and it's laughable to imagine anyone would. The second issue, the firing, is much squishier, because the burden of proof is much squishier for when it is okay to fire someone. The accounts of toxicity are valid in terms of investigating this event. And honestly, I can imagine that the intense pressure of creating a videogame (for people who had never created one before) paired with Robert's personality would make for a toxic atmosphere. I think PMG here have a bias toward human stories (they are about People who Make Games), but the effect is that the second event (the firing and whether it was justified) has been tossed in front of them like a golden ball, and they have gotten so deeply invested in that second event and figuring out what went on there, in part because there was more material available to them on it, that they never properly followed the first thread, which, again, is the one where something criminal may indeed have happened. The firing might be right or wrong, but it is likely not illegal in itself. I think this speaks to the fact that PMG are well meaning but fundamentally poorly experienced/positioned to do the type of investigation truly needed here.
Having worked in multiple startups and corporate settings for several years now, this video felt like staring into a collage of my past experiences. There are people like these everywhere in the world. But Kurvitz, in particular, stands out. Not because I've worked with someone like him, but because I've been friends with someone like him. Argo saying the follower leader thing was something I deeply related with, and while I am not married yet, I and my peers were lucky enough to snap out of it. I genuinely feel for Robert, this is his life's work, but the tortured artist often fails to see how their own actions inevitably end up being used against them.
I have been in a relationship with this leader/follower dynamic and it's extremely hurtful. I genuinely hope Robert will some day reflect on his behaviour there and choose to do better.
@@AfutureV Unfortunately. As a design student I see how my friends undersell their hard earned skills bc they're passionate. I hate to act as cut-throat as the business type at negotiating, yet the world won't let us share art and techniques without backstabbing us.
Very much so. One thing I noticed that raised significant red flags was how overbearing he appeared to be in his interview in regards to Rostov, including cutting him off a couple of times and completing his thought process for him. That certainly tracks with a lot of the problems and complaints the other former employees mentioned. It's also very obvious he is on a warpath, and very much not seeing the forest for the trees in terms of his relationship with others. So this would, at the very least, make the allegations from Argos and Kasper very credible. And it is equally telling that none of the people who have been with ZA/UM from the very start deny that this game and its world are his baby and duly credit him for it. And if the situation regarding the making of the Final Cut does seem to include a fair deal of bad organisation from all involved, it also seems to have more than its share of divide and conquer tactics from the upper management. It's obvious that crunch was happening left and right, and if I certainly understand Rostov, Kurvitz and Hindpere taking personal time, it's obvious that this fostered resentment, which makes me question both why didn't the other overworked employees rightfully demand the same time off and why didn't Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere demand the same out of solidarity. In the end, and as it stood, they were all crunching for the financial gain of the money people, and that should be an issue where they all stood together on the same side. But on this, there were clearly divide and conuer tactics at play, it seems. And on that note, it does strike me as odd that some of the other interviewed employees seem so content to go to bat for corporate even after so many clear examples of their very shady behaviour.
@@thegrimner "why didn't Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere demand the same out of solidarity" Because they (or at least Robert, as a dominating personality the others just follows/are manipulated to follow) do not have any solidarity to the workers. Why didn't Kaspar or Argo, or Helen, or any of the other workers own anything of the company or the IP? Because Kurvitz don't care about workers. He cares only about himself and his own creative vision - no matter how much of it is created by anyone else. In his mind, he is the sole creator, it is his child, he sacrificed for it. He even sacrificed friendships for it. But he can't see past his fucking greed and ego.
@@Taeerom Incredible nuance there, buddy. I mean, beyond the fact that not a single one of his coworkers disputes the fact that the world and the story are Kurvitz's brainchild, it could just as easily be argued that someone like Justin Keenan kind of has a vested interest in getting promoted at Kurvitz's expense, which is why he and Petteri came up with that frankly ridiculous story about Robert trying to sneak the IP away from the studio. Notice that I said "it could" though, because I am much, much less inclined to jump into conclusions. WHich is why, if I had to guess, this has all the signs of management turning workers against each other using and exploiting pre existing issues to widen the rifts between them. Again, no one disputes Kurvitz and Rostov and Hindpere worked like hell on the game, or their mention of intense crunch; what's incredibly contradictory, even within the other workers of ZA/UM, is the level of involvement expected of him for the Final Cut; but as for rest after years of crunch? Yeah, I'd very much say it's earned; for every one. That people resent him for both taking time off and simultaneously wanting to be involved, and nowhere there are questions being asked regarding what are clearly unrealistic timeframes from management should give time for pause; as should the fact that some of the workers interviewed do seem to go above and beyond to defend managers that were involved in what's at best pretty unethical, and legally shady corporate takeover. Not that I don't understand why people who uprooted themselves have a vested interest in keeping their jobs, but by the same token, their vested interests should be taken into consideration.
Robert seems like an unpleasant boss, likely exacerbated by the stress of making the game, but it does seem like he was shafted here with his behaviour used as a later excuse to cover up the fact his ideas and the company were stolen from him.
Yeah it really doesn't sit right with me, it feels like the people who have legitimate issues with him ended up being used in this battle of him against the money people
@@Tardsmat which is basically what he says on his letter at the end, he should acknowledge his toxic behavior but it has nothing to do with what happened to the company
@@yggdrasilburnes And good, honest ppl get screwed over by both hoards of idiots. Crucial party missing here. The developers and artists on team are big part of the reason DE is a miracle as it exists.
Argo's the real hero in all of this. You can tell he really appreciates everyone who pitched in for that "one magical moment" from all angles, including those who provided the money to the ousted visionaries. He's still hoping for everyone to somehow have a part in all of this, while also realizing that everyone deserve this more than one guy deserves it.
You acquired majority share of the company? With no paper trail? During the pandemic? While In cahoots with an established embezzler? That's fine. Makes sense. That Kurvitz guy is a bully you say? Outrageous!
Yeah, I feel embarrassed for eating up PMG's reporting. I would have continued to be ignorant had I not stumbled upon Jamrock Hobo's updates. They really provided perspective. I'd like PMG to issue an update apology amendment/addendum (or a separate follow-up video) that addresses their shortcomings in the reporting of this piece.
@@pnpgutterfold This video is mostly the interviews of the real people. Both things can be equally true from this video; Kurvitz was a bastard artist, and the publisher did financial slight of hand to get everything they could. There's no shortcomings, just what the people themselves said.
@@Hypogean7 Yes, that's correct. Both of those things are equally true, but one was used to cover up and justify the other, and that was not appropriate.
@@Hypogean7Kurvitz being a bastard is not what’s on trial here. People will watch this video and continue to focus on condemning individuals instead of impersonal systems. PSY: 6 INT: 1
If you hired someone to manage your finances, then they used your money to buy your house, I don't think any judge would think it matters at all if you were a bad coworker or an unreliable friend. It's not hard to tell who's in the wrong here.
I see lots of people (rightly!) praising Chris's reporting, but I have to point out that Anni did an INCREDIBLE job with all of the graphics and animation on this one. Amazing work, both of you!
I'd like to buy PMG from them but I don't have the money, so how about I buy their next video for 1€ and then sell it back for 4.000.000€, then I use the 4.000.000€ to buy the company, then I reimburse the for the difference with the profits from future videos? Keemaaaaaaaaan it's a good deal!
Agreed it’s like sound design in a video game. If no one comments on it it’s because it’s probably great and doesn’t detract from the more obvious elements, be it killer reporting or amazing graphics.
Before seen that video, I didn't fully appreciated how important video game journalism is for the people who work that industry. Thank you for your work
I'm really grateful for Argo's view of this as someone who thinks kindly of everyone on the team but also sees their flaws, especially Robert's. I agree with him, that what happened to Robert was unfair for a story that he was so instrumental in, but it's important realising that the accusations against him aren't 100% false either. I do think it's important to remember that while some stories can be important individual artistic visions, video games are a collaborative medium, and you need to make that collaboration easier, not harder. EDIT: I wanna make it clear Robert still has the right to fight what was clearly a hostile takeover by Ilmar/whoever else made the decision to remove him, Hellen and Rostov - definitely his toxicity needs to be addressed as well but it's clear it's being used as an excuse on the money side since the original reason for his firing wasn't even the toxicity, but the alleged IP theft.
Yeah it sounds a lot like Robert is clearly a terrible person to work with but at the same time he might very well be right. It feels like any ways this goes, the chances of a new game being made in a better environment are unfortunately slim due to his denial of addressing his own extremely toxic behaviour.
I have seen enough news coming out of video game studios to know that you can commit legitimate crimes as long as you are still profitable. Robert became a profit risk.
toxicity will be a background element of humanity for centuries to come, and it will show its head whenever stress accompanies it . i'm scared of people who think otherwise
@@Lovyxia It's often effortless to label someone as toxic simply because they work differently. Unfortunately, this has become a common trend in our society. Consider the works of Hayao Miyazaki as an example. Great art doesn't always come from incorporating every suggestion. It's important to have faith in the creative process. If someone doesn't believe in it, they always have the choice to step away, as their stakes may not be as significant as they perceive them to be.
Such an incredible deep dive on a super complicated situation, really appreciate all the hard work to find the truth, while also avoiding painting false equivalences and not holding back on critiquing the responses (or lack thereof) in the interviews. Bravo!
The more I think about this doco the more I'm angered by the false equivalence of Kurvitz being (supposedly, according to the people he is suing and their current employees) difficult to work with versus the criminal acts of fraud committed by Kompus and Linnamae. I applaud your work in gathering the information together but in terms of presenting a balanced perspective I believe you absolutely dropped the ball. Everything thrown at Kurvitz is either based on hearsay or entirely subjective evaluations of his character. Meanwhile, as Kurvitz rightfully points out, Linnamae doesn't even bother to show up so you throw up your hands and give up on putting any kind of real accountability on him. Of course the energy "changed" in the room when you got in Kurvitz and Rostov's face about their longtime friends' accusations. This is personal to them, it's just another grift for Kompus and Linnamae. Do better.
The thing that pisses me off the most are the fans that decided to send death threats to the staff of Za/Um. That the staff were terrified of even doing these interviews fearing the fan backlash. No matter how you feel on the situation on who’s in the right or wrongs. It’s never a justified reason to send death threats, especially death threats saying they will kill a parent’s child.
Not only is it wrong to send death threats, it's just flat out misguided to aim your anger at the staff who are not at fault for anything. It's a dispute between creative directors and the company's lead and major shareholder, not the company's employees.
"Gamer culture" is the worst offshoot of the awful "fan culture". An obsession with the product leads to an absurd sense of entitlement and disrespect for others. I love that this channel is called "People Makes Games", that hits right to the core lesson so many "fans" fail to grasp.
It's so short-sighted to know only few details about situation and conclude that you have whole picture and thus know what's right. People will change opinion based on emotions and emotions change when new information comes out. Sending death threats is the ultimatum. You should never do this, but even if you do you do it because you are 100% believing that you know everything - which is never true with this kind of 'drama'. Even after this video noone should proclaim that it's clear what happend.
I feel like what this video is missing is an interview with a completely independent 3rd party CFO of a similarly sized company to know "how much of this weird money movement is actually weird?" Like I feel like Ilmar's case could really do with some analysis by someone who actually knows what things mean
Yeah, that would be interesting to know. I've tangentially been knowledgeable of some corporate financial transactions that seemed odd, but we're completely above board, simply due to corporate structuring and timing on how the transactions needed to take place.
the biggest problem here is the distintion between illegal and shady. Is it shady? Oh god absolutely, neo liberal EU allows for this shit, But is it illegal? That's the big question here. Moreover, what and how much illegal it is. The purchase might be legal but the payments through the gf/wife shareholder might be illegal, etc etc etc... Unfortunately I don't know Latvia's law, or england's... I lost myself a bit understanding if this was being trialed in latvia, Estonia or England, or EU courts
@@Kishuy I think this is the big thing, yeah he could have nicked it from them but accounting wizardry is an artform and I’d wager these business types know it well. Shady most likely but not illegal
@@StanleyKubick1 I can but they aren't good references. It's murky and lots of corruption. South American markets and South east asia markets specific as well as India, some African Markets and for funzies, some states in the US. But it isn't a 1:1 comparisson and I know to few details to make any sure acessments. I just know too little about the case unfortunately, hence why I raise the question that it might actually be legal. For example, in most EU countries to prove corruption someone has to physically wire/give money to another person. Say you bought them a gucci bag and then their wife sold a gucci bag? Nope, might be ilicit gains or some IRS tax violation, but it isn't corruption. You will notice, if you live in EU, that alot of your elective representatives get trips and football tickets etc for free and VIP treatment in them. Alot of their sponses also do quite nice deals with the government or with each other.
Why are interpersonal problems between the lead individuals and others in the team being used as a counterweight to the theft of the project from its creators ? Are there any projects where there are no conflicts, where people dont say harsh things and complain about the lead not working as much as others do? I think the angle of this video is very strange. The appeal the video makes to "workers solidarity" is especially cynical, bacause all it means here is "you should not give importance to the theft of the project, because the lead team was mean/incompetent". Its a false dichotomy: either you are "with the workers" or against them and with the lead. Kurvitz email at the end is correct. Nothing absurd about it.
There is no equivalency between Kurvitz and Kompus in terms of their "toxicity". Kurvitz being a bad manager doesnt mean he deserves to have his lifes work fraudulently taken from him. Should he be a boss again? Probably not. Should he have his IP back? Absolutely.
But was the IP ever solely in his hands, or should it be? Like really the only thing that would change is the size of the Ilmar's share. And that wouldn't get Robert the majority. Let him write his books or whatever, maybe a second chance with a separate studio under ZAUM or a basic writer position. But letting NetEase on it I am way less supportive of
@@roumaaana basic writer position? Why? Elysium is his baby. The best situation, only of respect to the other workers at ZAUM, would be that both studios share the Elysium IP. Kurvitz should be allowed to do with what he created whatever he want
@@roumaaan why do you need a cohesive development? Let each one of them do their thing. Do you expect cohesive development out of media that happens in the Forgotten Realms for example? Elysium is a setting, many unrelated stories can happen in it. And even if both groups make a game that involves the same characters with the same story, so what? Let the best one be selected by the public as "canon"
"The mask has slipped from the face of capital. What remains at ZA/UM is a cold, careless company where managers wage war against their own creatives, where artistry is second to property, and where corporate strategy is formed by an arrogant disdain for their own audience."
I like how Kurvitz hit the nail on the nail on the head that this documentary was just looking for office drama to spin into a story, he said as much to the documentary team's face, and they got pissy enough about it to make this a paid puff piece for Zaum's leadership. I genuinely hope the people behind this doc have it hanging over them for the rest of their careers that two separate people said this documentary made things so much worse internally, and that most of the Disco Elysium community now considers them fence-sitters who defended the IP being stolen because Kurvitz wouldn't play ball.
What's up with the part about Hindpere as Lead Writer on the Final Cut? I feel like I missed something, everything about her is built around that, like "maybe she got fired because she didn't work?", but she says she was also responsible for VO? Why isn't this a bigger deal? The whole game had VO in the Final Cut, this is a huge part of it, but we're only hearing writers say she didn't write. And that part about the deadline is really confusing too? Like obviously people are complaining about the people just above them, I'm sure they won't have anything bad to say about the dudes they never interacted with (or the wife of a dude they never interacted with). [2024 update about that: really surprising how with the rest of the team being fired, we heard the same thing about new leads not getting any word from management and being unable to tell the rest of the team what to do. It's as if management had all the power and could create tensions between leads and workers. (PC Gamer, "A follow-up to the legendary Disco Elysium might have been ready to play within the next year")] Anyways, like many, I don't doubt at all the fact that it was a difficult place to work at (and honestly I don't see how people could have seen ZA/UM as a place that would be cool to work at), but I also don't really think the last part about the mail is deserved. If all three of them were indeed not fired for toxicity, then I get why they wouldn't want to play the game and talk about that, because no matter how at fault they are, it's only paying into their opponents hands. What were they supposed to say "yeah we fucked up, we're creatives, not managers"? Even if that's what they think, that would only give more ammo to the idea that they were rightfully fired.
Need this upvoted more. It's astute to point out that it's pointless to pass judgment on the ability of either side to self-criticize, at least until all or any upcoming court battles are well behind them Also AGREED, there was a lot clearly going on with Helen that didn't get fully explained
@@iateabagelonce - Especially when part of the reason for firing Robert (allegedly) was his patriarchal and inappropriate behaviour towards Helen (which Helen denies happening for what it's worth), but then they also fired HELEN at the same time? The deadline thing is also pretty obvious. Sure the writer didn't get deadlines from Helen until last moment, apparently neither did Helen get any from the execs. So can hardly blame here there. And yeah maybe she didn't write a word, but she did lead the VO effort, with no experience, for a massive game, during a pandemic. Were the other writers aware of that? I think the fact that both Helen and Rostov were fired alongside Robert makes this just a lot more shady.
I find crazy that in the west now we can use "work place toxicity" to excuse theft and fraud. I get it, the original team were no business men and were probably very hard to work with and under a lot of pressure but Ilmar is a very dodgy guy and I personally think it wouldn't be hard for him to cross that line into criminal. Also talking about toxicity, what about Helen's treatment from Ilmar, it goes both ways if they want to play this game. I went in open minded knowing nothing about this but my sympathies are now definitely on Robert and his teams side. Interviewer: "yeah maybe the Ilmar guy is a criminal but.... (Alleged) tOxCiCiTy!"
More like you're using fraud as an excuse to defend workplace toxicity like every other aging conservative snowflake. Kurvitz's behaviour would be a reasonable cause to demote or fire him in any situation. The fucked up way zaum was taken over doesn't mean he should be reinstated into a position of authority within the company
The last few minutes of this video says alot more than I think he realizes. In the majority of the video, there's a tone of being an even handed journalist just trying to get the facts without putting his finger on the scale (which, by the way, is impossible) until the end where he suddenly becomes indignant ar Kurvitz's admittedly non-response to the follow up questions. Where was this actual "nah" after all the things Ilmar said and refused to substantiate, or the many questions he side stepped? They sometimes get a brief acknowledgement, but never a minutes long outraged monologue. Which is especially odd when, as others have pointed out, fraud and the hijacking of the life's work of many people and being a bit of a dick who's not suited to leadership, aren't equal crimes. Bias is unavoidable in journalism so I try to give leeway in that respect but man. That was a hell of a tone shift and a hell of a time for it.
personally (and I'm obviously just speculating) it's possible that it hit a more personal note for the interviewer because a bad/toxic boss is more relatable and more "tangible" than fraud and IP theft. If I'm being honest, reading that email response also enraged me, because it's a such a cop-out and a complete disregard of his employees' very serious grievances. it's just something that people are more likely to be able to empathize with.
@@maplebaconcakes5113 that would be fair if there wasn't an active lawsuit going on. I don't know the man and can't say how he feels, but given that it's *the* reason the corpos said he was fired, it would have been incredibly stupid to respond, especially after PMG showed their hand like that - watch Kompus' interview again, he did the same thing but more smoothly and businesslike and they either didn't notice or let it slide. Again I don't know him or how he feels but if I were in his position, I could be crying myself to sleep every night over it and still would have given a similar response.
bc everyone knows the financial side is sketchy and will likely be settled in court. The community of the game is not really seeing through the toxicity of Robert's response tho, which more or less confirms what has been said about him by centering the entire scandal as well as the output of the company around himself and the people in his close circle he is also manipulating. I.e. If he is involved in any capacity with a new title, he must be a writer only since he is a loose cannon that you can't really have in contact with the rest of the team. Which obviously isn't going to work, especially since he feels entitled to control his work exclusively and run the company his way. It is a publicly traded company, necessarily so under capitalism to fund development, so there will be capitalists involved, and the correspondence from Tonis confirms that the goal of these investors is growth (duh). Ultimately, that requires a smooth operation that is not possible with a toxic clique at the helm. This isn't inherently bad, but it's clear that Robert will need to self evaluate before he could be involved with DE2 again, and he has instead chosen to hide behind ideology and entirely ignore the primary victims of the debacle, being the employees that suffered under the management of both him and ZA/UM, further indicating that his ideology is dogmatic rather than practical considerations for the material conditions of the working class.
Huge amount of respect for this for the PMG folks. As someone who personally works in these close circumstances on both the "moneyholder" and the developer sides, so, so much of this rings as the exact things that are so hard to avoid: The former, developers trying to avoid bad businesspeople trying to pigeonhole them into terrible circumstances, and the latter, workers trying to avoid bad leadership and collaborative dysfunction. I've had immense respect for the workers who have had to endure this unrelenting abuse towards them despite just wanting to contribute to a deeply meaningful work they appreciated, and in particular, I'd like to also give a shout-out to Danielle Partis who seemed to be the only person to give a voice to the workers in any coverage prior to this. Keep it up, gang.
Anyone looking at this video now should watch some of the rebuttal videos that criticize the reporting work done here: Jamrock Hobo's recent 'About the disco elysium investigation' video and stushi's 'A response to the disco elysium investigation' - the latter of which has some lengthy back-and-forth in the replies from PMG and stushi worth reading. Much of what those videos cover dispels some of the questionable narratives and shortcomings of the reporting done here.
I think that, to me the tragedy of all this is the loss of those moments that are talked about in the second view with wide eyes. Those tabletop campaigns that Elysium came from must have been much simpler times, when ZA/UM were friends instead of business associates. Its sad to me that the price of their incredible art might be the loss of the connections between them. I think this, all of this makes for a great extension to the art of Elysium. It's a dehumanising thing to say, but this story would fit perfectly in Elysium - capitalism subsumes all. Even in how friends decay and end up in sad dispositions between eachother over time.
I was having the exact same thoughts. I enjoyed Disco a ton but generally stay away from gaming discussion boards (reddit…😂) so had no idea about all of this. The background on where ZAUM came from really does make the enormous success/profit of Disco seem like both a blessing and a curse. I wonder if it was lightning in a bottle. Can a sequel succeed without the charismatic yet totally destructive leader + core members of the founding group?
To me this looks like a group of people that all suffer from severe burnout blaiming their circumstances on each other. And a handful of money people taking advantage of them.
Yeah the whole point of “excessively long vacations” feels like workers resenting the ones who got their rights instead of the bosses who forced them to crunch and take shorter breaks.
@@andrekanasiro728 The internal hierarchy certainly didn't help. Robert and Helene didn't take on the responsibility and weren't cut to be leaders, yet they ended up in that positions. Judging from the interviews they're complicit of holding on to power too and dishonest about (maybe even to themselves) how much they can realistically shoulder. Resentment is inevitable if your higher ups force you to take over their share of work unprompted and f*cked off to vacations that you also should be able to take, and then got their names credited in place of your and others' names.
I must say that if I understand correctly, the initial production for DE was supposed to be close to a year, and after release the final cut followed about a year later. A year for any complex game, much less a complex writing heavy CRPG sounds like absolute hell, and I'm more upset that the non-core creatives didn't also get a chance to rest from that crunch rather than that those three extended theirs so long.
@@andrekanasiro728 The feeling that I get from their interviews it's not that they resent the fact that they went on vacations, but that they did not do the work of a lead in the position those 3 were, then shoved a good chunk of their work responsabilities onto the workers themselvess, then went on vacations, and then extended them. I feel that no matter how much vacation time you personally get, if your boss (who is a first degree asshole if we believe the workers) is incompetent in ther position as a leader, shoves half their work onto you and goes on a vacation, and then extends that vacation you would (rightfully) resent them. That's not how things operate in a group. If you need to stop for a week or so to relax a bit before continuing then sure, other workers can shoulder your responsabilities for a bit. But 3 months? If you need to stop for that long pause the entire project. If the executives then say "no" then you have a case for something else but as the employees describe the situation it was basically "hey, could you take over me for a week so I can relax a bit?" and then the employees learned they fucked off for 3 months god knows where which I would be extremely pissed off at them if I was there. There was no talk with the employees about the situation, no "hey, could we stop for a while to recover from burnout?", nothing. They just went away and left the employees holding the pieces and ressponsabilities of continuing the project without them.
So glad you did this deep dive. As a person with familiarity with securities and corporate law (in America only, not Estonia), I can't imagine a good explanation for the fake IP transaction/loan and it's extremely telling that Ilmar could only refer to informal talks and secret explanations.
watching him squirm in the interview and basically refusing to answer the simple question "why would the others be fine with such a loan?" is incredibly telling. that transaction had bad vibes all over it, as soon as i heard of it
Not only the longest extensive video on the matter, but the only one that I`ve seen where they actually go directly to the sources, the agents of the situation instead of quoting parts from articles of multiple media without even mentioning what it is the supposed source. All that and keeping the journalist opinion part of the article clearly separated and bunch together in one section. This is what journalism was supposed to be and so tremendously rare nowadays, bravo.
I really appreciate all the work you guys put into videos like these. There's plenty of great videogame journalism out there but I think perceptions can often be a little skewed in the gaming community. It's an interesting, artistic industry, like any other, and seeing such great, informative work being produced essentially for free online is lovely.
One thing this video neglects to mention is that there were many other developers fired alongside Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere. Martin Luiga was briefly mentioned, but he makes clear in his medium post that there were other developers fired at the same time as he and the creative leads were. They may not want to be named or talk to press, but to leave any mention of that out isn’t painting a full picture. Firing around 10 members of the team (which was originally only around 30 people) is a pretty significant change and calls into question Ilmar’s claims that the firing was mostly due to managerial issues from Kurvitz. If Kurvitz is the problem and there was no financial impropriety, why fire so much of the team? Furthermore, Kender and Haavel were employed as producers on the project. Why are none of the managerial failures laid at their feet? They were the ones actively managing the business side, development timeline, milestones etc. Are they not to blame for many of the managerial failures and challenges in addition to the alleged financial impropriety? I get they weren’t interested in speaking with you, but it seems pretty relevant that they were both principle investors of the project who were also deeply involved in managing the studio, and very little of the video focuses on their conduct.
Luiga went out way before the big attention to the game. As an Estonian, heard some rumors of some conflicts with people inside. You know, at the very moment when the creative leads very much still were the only leads.
So much this. In this video Helen talks about how she was verbally berated by Haavel, didn’t have deadlines communicated to her by Kender, and was made to sign a new contract every 2 years so she wouldn’t be entitled to benefits. Any one of those three things is, in my view, far worse than anything Kurvitz was accused of (and that’s assuming every accusation against Kurvitz was completely accurate). But PMG didn’t comment on it, follow up on it, or even really draw attention to it in any way. It’s just put there before the conversation goes back to how much of a big meanie Robert was, and moralising about how he isn’t addressing the criticisms made against him. It’s honestly pretty disgusting the way that this doc seems to conveniently forget that Robert, Helen, and Alexander were themselves workers and their legitimate grievances against the company were given *far* less weight than those of the other workers which were very clearly motivated by other factors (namely, excusing financial crime)
@@starryscar22 oh absolutely, in light of new information that has come out in the last few days, with more developers leaving the studio and speaking out, it’s even more clear that People Make Games dropped the ball with this one. It’s a huge embarrassment that they put out this garbage video and they should be ashamed for doing what is essentially a hit piece against the fired creative leads on Disco Elysium.
It's both disgraceful and dishonest journalism if there won't be a follow up video on this. You always, always follow up on the story you've picked up.
@@Kivlov84 It was merely a well done for a quality, unbiased piece of gaming journalism. But now that you mentioned it, there were reports that after documentary came out the working conditions in ZA/UM had gotten worse, so I wouldn't entirely rule it out.
@@DawidUliczny-ro7eowhy is the whistleblower responsable for any retaliatiory accions that the company may take? You sound like your angry you can not live in a fantasy and putting the blame on the guy that runied your inmersion
I beg of you, when talking about many different names in short succession, please keep names up on the screens, maybe even with their portraits. I know it doesn't make for fancy editing, but it would be so helpful for following along of who did or said what. Especially when names start with the same letter and are unfamiliar to me, I'm completely lost. Giving them some kind of jobtitle or relation to the topic of the video would also be great.
They're all telling the truth. You can be a bully and be bullied yourself. Predators get eaten by bigger predators. I wish people would understand that being a victim doesn't make you a perfect and harmless person.
Sorry, but that's BS. We don't know how bad his actions and behaviour were. Toxic is a very flexible expression, what is toxic to one person might just be being a little harsh for another. And fe. being very critical and dismissive of someone's work doesn't necessarily mean you are a horrible monster of a boss, even less, when the criticism might just be correct. it's not like there's a law saying you can't harshly criticize someone at work, because it might hurt their feelings. I'm not saying there's nothing to these allegations, but in which world does this justify what happened to him and the other two? This was their project, their company, their creative IP, even if he was a horrible boss, then just making him take a backseat when it comes to running the company or dealing with other employees would have been enough. What happened here is that Kompass used shady, almost certainly illegal means to acquire a majority of the company, when the three others wanted to see paper work to understand what had happened, he fired them and then consequently began a slander campaign against them, especially Kurvitz.
ok lets say it how it is: copyright never served the artist as long as he wasnt richer then his opponent. It is a shame and a scandal that one of the best universe created this century is being stolen from the original creators and we all can see the proof clearly weighing in for them. Nothing would have ever been created without those 3 the way it was. And the sequel will never come close to the original if the original minds that created this universe over years dont work on it and own it. Yall coping not fighting for the artist or freedom in general for that matter
@@un1c0rn52 picking a side is necessary if you are not strong enough to stay neutral You will simply go insane if you don't pick a side in this situation
This is what all gaming journalism should aspire to! Great explanation of a complicated situation; revealing interviews with all the key players; analysis and review that doesn't try to dodge the responsibility of stating the author's/publication's position on where the truth probably lies. Fantastic stuff.
They didn't truly engage in both-sidesing. To me, they clearly favored the corpos. They put way too much blind faith and weight onto the "the courts will decide" defense (which really is a corporate defense) and ended up demonizing Kurvitz by pressing him harder on questions than they did Ilmar K. Kurvitz reacted defensively, but that's actually normal given that he's being actively gaslighted with these questions. The misogyny he was being accused of was still happening in ZA/UM after he was fired and they later found out it was mostly Tonis/Dennis H. who was the master manipulator.
I'm so thankful that you gave the employees the opportunity to speak and be heard. It's heartbreaking to hear the struggles of development on the original game and final cut, dealing with bad management and extra responsibilities pushed on them, and then after all that they have to endure death threats because of a dispute over an issue that doesn't involve any of them. I hope that however all of this works out, all these employees get to keep working on projects they care about and enjoy with better management.
Hindsight is 20/20, but reading back Kurvitz's final email - the one at 2:21:00 - it seems incredibly on point and prophetic. For PMG to say that the email is "outrageous" completely misses the mark. Was Robert a terrible boss? Evidently. But the DE IP has clearly been stolen by criminals who are slick and wealthy enough to get away with it. You say that this "has to go through the courts", but it's clear that will never result in a satisfactory conclusion based on how thorough Kompus and Haavel are in covering their tracks. The fact they have not allowed the company to produce a single title since DE, but have simply ramped up projects and then cancelled them, seems incredibly suspicious. Tuulik, a fan favourite who became known *due to this very video*, has been fired from a key (now-cancelled) project which he and fellow writer Klindžić were effectively joint leads on: the closest the studio will ever get to a DE2. There is no reason for this that anyone can discern. Haavel and Kompus simply decided this promising project should be cut. Why? As this case fades further into the past, it's clear that Kurvitz's behavior (and your overly thorough focus on his character), while distracting and distressing at the time, were never the key issue. The key issue was always that an incredibly popular IP fell into the hands of shady businessmen, who are either milking it for all it's worth, or hugely mismanaging it. You guys dropped the ball here, in a huge way.
@@librariesarecool7461 There's "discussing", and there's "letting those issues cloud the discussion so much that they obscure the bigger picture". I believe pmg fell into the latter with this one. To be clear, I don't condone abusive work practices. But the amount of harm za/um has had done to it since kurvitz's exit has only increased.
@@librariesarecool7461because the focus on condemning individuals instead of impersonal structures and corrupt systems is exactly what they want you to focus on to muddy the waters. People Make Games, a channel called *People Make Games* is a centrist coward almost acting like a shill on a payroll saying “Erm both sides are bad but I’m going to finish the video by saying Kurvitz is an evil person that should be your take away from the video, nothing about his life’s work being stolen, nothing about the fact that this is the most Disco Elysium thing that could’ve happened to the game, no just reduce this a one on one, who do you think is the bigger meanie, Kurvitz or Kompos?” Shame on him.
It's possible for someone to be an asshole and still have their life's work stolen, and for that to be unfair despite him being an asshole (if that is indeed the case).
if anything that Disco Elysium taught me, people are complicated. My heart feels the most for the team and the writers and workers, like Argo. I hope that in the end SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL can still happen here. DE is my favorite game and I'm thankful for the feelings and story it gave me. No matter what happens with its future I want to thank the writers, programmers and artists who bore the brunt of all this chaos and made something fantastic.
Honestly, the only person here who didn't present their case well was Ilmar. On Robert's end, he doesn't even necessarily deny he was toxic, which he clearly was, but he does importantly point out that his removal was clearly motivated by something shady and likely illegal on the money side. Based on what's presented in this video (and maybe I'm missing something) it seems the other devs and writers had concerns and issues with him, but that his firing came long before any action by the ZA/UM team to push him and the others out. He's right; his bad behaviour (which he absolutely should be held accountable for) is a scapegoat for what looks to be a lot of illicit behaviour (like the funneling of money to a woman who has nothing to do with the company, for example). The fact that IP theft (with no evidence) was the original reason with toxicity only coming up later is so shady. I think Robert's an egomaniac and a bit of an asshole, but in terms of his rights as a creator and IP holder he deserves some justice. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the other writers, devs, creatives still at ZA/UM.
yes; It seems like in a ideal world, he and Zaum employees would share the rights to the disco elysium world, and at most he'd remain a consultant, sharing his talent with the team without being in a leadership position when he can hurt people, and remains free to keep going on his own projects.
@@maximeteppe7627 lol no in his ideal world he's the CEO/studio head/creative director. There was like a whole section about him trying to politic his way back into being in charge.
It's just his idea, but he didn't make Disco Elysium. He owns part of the studio & a larger part of DE2. Both of which would be worth a significantly larger sum of money if he wasn't a cunt, showed up to work, & didn't try to take the source code to go start another company. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's not true at all. Robert clearly tells a contradictory story than the one the workers tell, explicitly says the toxicity charges were not brought up when he worked there, and when confronted by that he refuses to reply. I don't see how that is presenting his case well at all
@@maximeteppe7627 Which would be how they would have organized it, if the loudest voices in their group were actual communists, rather than assholes putting on leftism as a fashion choice. I'm of course talking about Robert. If he actually cared about his ideological roots, he would allow the workers to own the company, and be part of leading it. But in stead, he was a tyrannical boss that fights tooth and nail to wrest control of some intangible property. Property a communist would want to not exist. A communist would not rent the IP to ZA/UM in the first place, much less sell it as he later did, but give it freely as open source to anyone.
It's telling that the interviewer apologizes for not being direct / aggressive enough while asking hard questions to Robert, while literally helping Ilmar to finish his responses (otherwise those will all come up straight from the gpt2 public comm for fraudsters 101). Anyway, Covid did them in, it's much easier to vilify someone over a slack message thread of even a zoom call, and to miss the moment you became vilified. Also, am I the only one who founds Haavel's slack message deliberately made to invoke disgust in Robert while looking completely adequate on the surface? I really doubt Robert is a person who would assign positive sentiment to the word "professionalism" in this context.
Here's my take as a neutral outsider: Ilmar: Definitely did a hostile takeover. Fraudulently or not is up to the courts to decide. Robert: Screwed by Ilmar & co. Feel bad for him on one side, but he does have Steve Jobs syndrome: Perfectionist visionary to a fault, creating a toxic work environment. Rostov/Helen: I think they meant well and just got screwed by Ilmar & co with unreasonable expectations and deadlines out of nowhere, to make them seem like bad lazy bosses and have reason for termination because they were loyal to Robert. Coworkers: Their frustrations are fully understandable and warranted. Knew little about the bigger picture, but have to deal with the consequences every day nonetheless.
You forgot to mention that Robert clearly tried to screw the company and potentially endanger the employment of people who worked there by stealing the company's IP. The most reasonable guy in all of this is Argo, he is the only person who truly understands that Robert is an extremely toxic and manipulative narcissist with a huge ego who got the closest people to him fired and lost access to his IP, because of it.
@@NoName-ym5zjThe issue seems a bit short on evidence but if they were to prove the source code theft... Yeah that is the nail on the coffin for Robert
I like how this video just blatantly sides with capital and tries to justify it on the grounds that Robert was a jerk. Even if you believe that the current system of "might makes right" in economics is good, what the people with the most power (capital) did in this situation is not excusable even on the system's terms, as the system at least has a legal framework and these people violated it. The last 2/3 of the video seem very keen to individualize all these actions as if to make them seem banal. Remember, the bourgeoisie pushes an ideology of atomized individualism outwards towards the subjugated classes, but inwards, it tends to firmly act as a class, with much more solidarity and co-operation than they would ever allow us to have.
Honestly i cant believe how, naive, they were. Never talked to a lawyer before that, never secured ip rights, as we know in almost every company you dont own the IP you created(example god of war and their creator david jaffe). Is something normal and you need legal advice to avoid that. And trusting a guy that did FINANCIAL CRIMES previously like. I dont want to sound mean, but we can tell that these ppl are socialist/comunist
MY OPINION AS A LABOUR ORGANISER after watching this is: absolutely the writers and workers deserve a share, and also, seems reasonable that they were mistreated. To give the (sliver) of credence to the capitalist side - sure, a story was spun which does not cover the entirety of the complexity of the issue. However, I think it's clear their employer started snowing them about the situation by making out it's all a big co-incidence and to use the legitimate grievances of the workers as a retconned rationale for firing people they had been salivating over cutting out of the profits for months. Plays out like in strikes - you can't convince one side, so you convince the other side of your own warped narrative, and then meanwhile use the whole conflict to your advantage.
Glad I wasn't the only one with this perspective. I mean, so much of this video seems to revolve around the fact that Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov took personal time off after 5 years of working long hours and crunch time,and the perspective here seems to be, "we resent them for it" rather than "we should all be taking time off and it's unfair of management to be pushing and changing headlines on the fly". CLassical divide and conquer tactics.
Kurvitz handling of his role as a leader and stealing company by Kompus are 2 very different things. But it's deliberately merged by Kompus to divert discusion, and he's taking advantage of employees to do it. To be in a position of Kampus you need to be very good at manipulating people. No one is perfect and during years of hard you can find mistakes in everyone curriculum vitae, including those emplyees who made those claims. Thier allegations are fair and propably mostly true. It's just not possible to not make any mistakes, overlooks and bad decisions having that role. BUT that's not what this scandal is about. It's about Kompus and his partners steal company from it's creators. I 100% agree with Kurvitz why he don't want to talk about it. Not becouse he doesn't care about other people, but becouse those are not topics that should be discussed right now. Going into details like if he read someones work or not is just following Kompus plan, to make this even more complicated and confusing and shift focus of attenion from him and his actions to Kurvitz. Making this film was very hard work and you do your best, but you lost focus. This should be about ZA/UM scandal and how Kompus become majority shareholder, very hard video do make. You could also make very easy to make video about if Kurvitz was perfect boss and leader (maybe even friend) with very obvoius answer - no, becouse no one is.
2:24:28 The editorializing over his response is unwarranted and arguably unprofessional. If you're not going to editorialize in the same way about the financial aspects of this, which are to be clear the actual story, then you definitely shouldn't be focusing so hard on this statement . Statement . And that's the real key, this statement and the things that he said in the interview did not dismiss the experiences of those people, but it did dismiss them in the context of the financial crimes that have been committed allegedly. Because they are not important in the context of what he is focused on, which is the financial crime.
kurvitz' misconduct is an issue and I feel terrible for the workers caught between everything, but I hope people realize that it doesn't take away from the severity/issue of IP theft
After watching this full video, I wouldn't believe a single word coming out of Dennis Havel. He writes an email to Robert saying he's treating Helen in a "patriarchal" manner but then goes on to scream at Helen for being terrible at her job and that she never should have held that role. Dennis sounds like a caracature of every executive I've ever worked with.
I'm a UK law student, and being so moved by Disco Elysium while writing my dissertation, this video perfectly marries my two obsessions. Robert can be a shitty and toxic boss, Rostov and Helen can avoid accusations against them, AND they can all be fucked over by the majority share holders/have their IP stolen. These situations don't tend to be black and white - what I will say is that I believe the writers and stand with the workers. If something criminal has taken place, the accusations of bullying, clique culture and such should not be used to try to disguise this - although they should be taken seriously and given the space they require. This was excellent journalism that NEEDS to be supported.
@@opiliones4202 I'm not profiting off of any system - I'm a student in the UK (broke as hell) and volunteer for a pro-bono legal advice service at my uni, which offers free legal services to the community. I agree that the system is broken and campaign for reform through my work.
It's possible that there's both fishy stuff being done by the shareholders AND that Kurvitz was legitimately fired for being toxic and impossible to work with. What really set off my bullshit alarm is when he said he wasn't aware of his stake in Newlysium, and when he started spouting politics instead of answering some very specific questions (same for Hindpere).
it might be a fairly niche subject, so i'm not sure how well this vid will do viewerwise. but please remember that this kind of stuff is incredibly important and I think tackling such issues in a fair and balanced way even if it might not be the best financial decision is extremely admirable and should absolutely be rewarded more than it is.
This isn't really true "both sides" journalism. It clearly favors the corpos. PMG held Kurvitz to a higher standard for responding (and of course he didn't react well because he's actively being gaslighted), while letting Ilmar K. off the hook with answers such as "we'll see what happens during the trial."
@@pnpgutterfold Whast else can be said, without facing a lawsuit legally? Declaring that they are guilty of financial crimes without passing through the courts first could get him under very hot water. And from what the other workers said, Kurvitz was 100% an abusive artist.
@@Hypogean7 You are correct in that declaring guilt prior to trial opens them up to a lawsuit and there is also no denying that Kurvitz was abusive. Regardless, an update on the situation is warranted because there is now so much more information that has come to light that responsible journalism would require a revisit. This is what people meant by this video not aging well. Journalism isn't a one-and-done thing, there needs to be updates once the story changes. The toxicity at ZA/UM has not subsided despite Kurvitz' departure and that should clue you in on the complexity of the situation and how the narrative against Kurvitz was utilized for inappropriate gains. Jamrock Hobo has done a couple of updates since this video that merits a watch.
This is a great video, really fantastic journalism you've done here. I will say, the hurt and betrayel the other employees feel for Robert is palpable. I've been exploited both by big corporations, and small mom&pop business, and I have to say - being exploited by someone you see everyday is so much worse. It hurts so bad. You trust them and you get shanked. With corporations you expect that, but not from your 'friend'. I can also completely understand Robert, Rotsev and Helen feeling the same way towards Illmar.
This video is an ugly stain on an otherwise unimpeachable body of work from PMG. It was pretty poor when it released, but in the 8 months since then it has become even more egregious. This really ought to be taken down, out of respect for the former workers at ZA/UM.
Taking it down is not the solution, but abridging or amending it is. It's still providing us with more information than any other source, but PMG needs to live up to the fact that their journalistic standards slipped here (by placing too much emphasis on things the courts can't resolve, they dropped the ball on pressuring both sides and mostly went after Kurvitz).
Feel you're doing a bit of a BBC-esque attempt at being unbiased. I think Robert is right that these interpersonal issues are being used cynically by the company in order to obfuscate their far more serious criminal activities. Robert and Helen both admit there is room to talk about those things, but this forum is not it. I agree, let's not get distracted or make some kind of false equivalency.
I'm not saying that Robert was a good leader (in fact, most creatives are AWFUL leaders), but this video doesn't sound right. Why has more of the video been focused on Robert's character as a leader? I've had a listen to this whole thing, and it sounds like the three lead creatives wanted a significant break after they finished work on Disco Elysium. And why not? Heck, it would make sense to let the rest of the employees have a break too (and that's usually what happens in the industry!). But it sounds more like the big three (Kaur, Haavel and Ilmar) encouraged the leads to take their breaks, and then while those breaks were happening, they decided to push forward without them. In fact, it sounds like Robert and Rostov were then demoted when they got back. Robert continued to try to retain creative influence, and Rostov's work suffered because of it (to which he apologises during the interview, it seemed he wasn't aware of how big a toll it took). Meanwhile Helen was Lead writer in name only (as she wasn't there when writing began, which actually suggests to me they wanted any excuse to get rid of her), but because of that job title, she was still allowed in meetings that cut Robert out (baiting Robert into interfering with the meeting, because obviously, things were getting worse for him, and they weren't going to make it easy to resolve). When Robert and Rostov tried to get back their positions as leads, the owners said no, and promptly made things even more difficult for everyone, eventually sacking all three leads for 'not doing their jobs' when that was exactly what they were trying to do. The accusation of IP theft is kept really small in this video, even though it's the huge thing that Ilmar is accusing Robert of. Given that this accusation is a he-said-she-said (there's no evidence this happened, there's only two people claiming it did), I don't think it has a leg to stand on. Also the fact that the companies accused (that Robert was supposedly going to sell to) are not consistent is an interesting point. Given Robert has made it quite clear he has no intention on selling his IP to anyone (assuming he gets it back), it's interesting that Ilmar is quite insistent that Robert wanted to sell it to someone else. Why would he be that desperate to get it back to sell it on if he also wants to make a sequel in a new studio? Doesn't make total sense. Kaur's involvement in the whole debacle needs further digging into. Obviously he's been instructed to lay low. Haavel's involvement at all is really alarming, he is literally a fugitive. Why Ilmar is protecting him and giving him a job (and paying him THROUGH HIS WIFE), I have no idea. By the way, just because the payments that were coming from the company have stopped, that doesn't mean he isn't still doing this. He could be paying himself a higher salary and paying the wife through his own income - since, as is claimed, Haavel worked directly for him before he was involved with ZAUM. Also Ilmar is quite clearly a fraud, and that other businessman, Mag-whateverhisnameis, is involved. Why else would he offer the guy a stake in a future endeavour after Kaur has made him out to be the bad guy? The way I see it, we need to focus on the actual crimes committed, because the alleged IP theft Robert is being accused of is just not going to stick. Then Robert and friends can make up for being shitty to each other over this mess. Whether Disco Elysium 2 happens after that... who knows.
I agree, i thought Roberts response to the toxic work environment accusation was pretty much perfect. The issue isn't why Ilmar decided to fire Robert and co, it's how the hell Ilmar managed to get into a position to fire them in the first place.
Agreed. The video unfortunately totally misses the mark when it comes to journalistic reporting. There is a clear bias (in favor of the capitalists) and an unfair one at that.
This is totally a capitalism sucks situation. Those financiers jumping in to snatch up the profits, and bilking the creatives. I stand with the workers, but those workers are also afraid of saying anything negative about ZAUM lest they be fired like Kurvitz was. I think he was perfectly logical to not wade into addressing the personal grievances in his apology because what, it’s just going to be more fodder for a media circus. I don’t think Kurvitz is faultless, but I highly doubt anything he did was nearly as illegal as the fishy dealings of those millionaires. They are gonna cut and run whenever they suck this pig dry, they always do.
The more time pass, the more it seems that this interview missed the mark entirely on the important stuff that should have been investigated. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, but since in the end the intervew only served to screw over the creatives that were forced out, or as a way to force out those that were left like Tuulik, while also giving too much trust to the head with money allegations against them... PMG really dropped the ball here.
Okay, I think people blasting PMG this much is a bit too far. Yes, there was too much of a focus on Kurvitz being an asshole, but everything else covered is fair and just. We find out the shareholder situation is dogshit, and there's lies being spread everywhere. The documentary nails on the head however, the fact that throughout this entire situation, the ones being hurt the most, are the workers. DE fans need to relax on the blind defense of Kurvitz. Yes, he is a genius. Yes he is is being fucked over extremely harshly and unfairly by market and greedy capitalist bullshit. But as far as multiple accounts go, Kurvitz was also doing shady stuff behind the scenes AND was horrid to staff. These ARE valid points to look at when looking at the situation. Although, I do think PMG should've focused more on Kompus and the left over ZAUM shareholders and their clear lies and skipping around the subject.
Thank you all for pouring your hearts and souls into Disco Elysium, it changed my life. And thank you for having the balls to do this interview, the same to all of your co-workers. Know that whatever part of yourselves you put into this, helped myself and many others in ways I can't really articulate.
There is an overarching issue here that is taking away from a clear lack of responsibility for the workers at the heart of this project by higher ups on both the creative and business side of things. A fantastic piece of journalism on a difficult to decipher case
This investigation should be updated. It seemed to miss the mark in the first place giving way too much equal time to the executives that took the studio, but after current events it makes it's ideas on the whole situation out of date.
what's the update on the situation? I know I can google, but is it true that the current studio holders are coasting off exploitation, essentially? and if I wanna play Disco Elysium now, I shouldn't officially purchase it just yet?
ehh, just play it. Ive no idea what effect it really has to not purchase it. Experiencing a great art like disco, you'de probably get more value by playing versus protesting it, or finding a safe way to irate it. I wouldn't be too paranoid.@@VinTJ
@@Hazparinrip, it's more that I don't want the money to fall into hands that don't deserve it, especially if the original staff all left at this point. but fair enough
u still didnt say what the update is? that za/um is failing as a company? I think anyone could have predicted that with the ways in which public opinion shifted
I mean clearly I don’t trust the guy buying up the stocks of the company. Even if he had good intentions in being sole owner, and he wanted to create a healthy work culture, he should have realized he needed the creatives help to make Disco 2. Plus, if he knew the other parties had issues, his purchasing decisions makes no sense as he stated it.
He's given us no reason to trust him. When you're the CEO of a multimillion dollar company your response to allegations like this should amount to more than "trust me bro".
Maybe they didn't really plan on making Disco 2. Since the remaining creatives were able to do Final Cut without much help, it looks like they can just do that again and expand on the world and IP already owned by the company.
So, a year later and I'm still hoping for, if not expecting, a retraction and apology of this video. While I understand this video took a great deal of effort, it is simply the case that as an investigation of facts, this video is simply woefully inadequate. Worse, the framing of the video, putting the personal allegations against Robert & Co against the financial malfeasance of Kampus & Co as if they were equivalent is ridiculous. I hope that at some point we get a follow-up that attempts to improve on this embarrassing episode.
To me it would have been useful if, in the recap of the interviews, the same drawn pictures of the people involved were shown. It's a very complicated story with many complex characters. Showing a constant who's who would help me keep up with all these people.
Yeah he was great pressing those questions on behaviour and expecting something else than a shift in tone. After that he failed to lead the conversation in a way that would sprout more meaningful insights instead only clumsily forcing a submissive response. No, he isn't a good interviewer, mediocre at best
the biggest failing of this video are his interviews. he is passive, apologetic, and unconfident. it’s very telling that his skill is in prepared writing/reporting, not in live interviewing.
So funny that this dude is on twitter RTing people saying this video is fine and absolutely refusing to acknowledge he might have any responsibility for what went down over there. Issue a retraction, or at the very least acknowledge you did not treat the writers fairly.
I really thought this story wasn’t going to be covered anymore and people would just forget about it, like any other controversy in the games industry. Thanks for putting so much work into reporting on this and giving us just a bit more clarity on the ZA/UM situation.
I think it’s remained in public consciousness because it’s an interesting story. It feels like it could be the underlying motive for the central murder of DE2.
"We asked [Argo Tuulik] how the studio culture changed at ZA/UM after the departure of most of the original writing team and the airing of the People Make Games documentary looking into the legal battle that ensued afterward." It's like transitioning from the Soviet Union into the fascist Russian Federation," Tuulik said. "Wearing the dead cultural movement like a skin costume, roleplaying communism, lying for dollars and yen. PMG doc changed lots of things in the studio. Personal dynamics. None for the better."" -GLH article, 'Last Disco Elysium Writer Laid Off by ZA/UM Speaks Out.'
"The hate PMG is getting for their ZA/UM piece is undeserved. Chris followed the truth -- all of it, not just the convenient bits -- and gave a voice to the voiceless in the fire. Gave us a chance, and me the strength to stand against the incompetence and injustice in the studio." -Argo Tuulik, February 17th 2024, Twitter
jamrock hobo made a video as an important reaction and context to this. As a lot of other comments say, this video starts good but really misses the point with how it is painting the situation.
I'm just gonna copy and paste a comment from the Disco Elysium reddit that says it better than I ever could "I didn't think I'd write a whole essay on this, but alas, this game saved me from alcoholism so I'm beholden to feel passionately about this topic to the point that I want to spill my guts after seeing this. After about a year of tuning into what little news we could receive from this, this video definitely gave us more than we needed to know about the issues, but I definitely felt like it was worth putting out because of the fact that completely uninvolved people have received threats from the community that are completely unwarranted. But for anyone who might read my comment, I feel it's worth noting that whatever issues arise between employees and Robert and the founding members of ZA/UM, have absolutely no bearing on the actual legal disputes between Kurvitz and Rostov having their creative effort taken away from them. TLDR; I don't feel like it was right to make 1/3 of the video about employee grievances against the creators of Disco Elysium, when the central focus is the legal dispute regarding the creators having their IP taken from them by an executive who, through questionable means, became majority shareholder and ousted them. While I agree that it sucks that there was apparently a bad working environment due to the "ZA/UM inner circle", that's not what this dispute is about and this is not going to be the avenue by which that issue is resolved. This can be perceived as ultimately attempting to disenfranchise the creators who are trying to retrieve their intellectual property after being wrongfully ousted from the company. By playing on elements of worker solidarity, workplace toxicity, and saying that all workers have contributed to the IP, it stokes division in the public opinion of the people who were actually wronged so that the capitalist who attempted to steal the profits of their creative labor can carry on knowing that it's bad PR for a little while, but if the creators are painted in a bad light in the meantime it can divert attention of their hostile takeover of the company and allow them to continue doing whatever they want with the IP with no repercussions if the law chooses to side with them in the end. /end tldr 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. You can see that this whole weaponization of people's personal qualms with dealing with Robert and company in how they collaborate, is approved by Ilmar Kompus in the beginning, when he gives free reign to the employees to speak to the PMG crew. He signs off on this, because he knows that even people like Argo have no personal gain in supporting Robert, and that even if you take a fair position, it only solidifies this narrative being built against Robert and Rostov to sway the public opinion so that ZA/UM's next game won't immediately get panned by the community to show solidarity to them. (Suggestion: "It's easier to get people to stop supporting a cause, if they feel like the cause is headed up by bad people.") Basically it boils down to being in a rock and a hard place, which is synonymous with having idealizations of worker solidarity in a capitalist world anyways. You can either support the people who came up with this fantastic setting, or you can support the workers, who have no choice but to stick with their jobs and pay the bills, regardless of how they feel because worker solidarity is about taking care of the workers. Argo had a reasonable stance in the video by saying that his friends should be able to have their world they made and do what they want with it, but that shouldn't lead to people losing their jobs. Unfortunately this dispute has escalated beyond that outcome. Robert is also in a hard place because all he can say in a way that stays true to his ideals, is that he chooses not to participate in the accusations of toxicity in the workplace not because he doesn't want to deal with it, but because he identifies it as being weaponized against him to pull public opinion away from him and keep the company profitable when the next project is released. I'm sure if he is the communist he claims to be, and that his writing reflects, he'll open a dialogue about his behavior to the other employees who felt wronged by them. Clear the air with no expectation that any of them support him in his legal dispute, but rather to set aside any bad blood that might've coagulated during development. Not for any tangible benefit, but because mutual respect is also a tenet of worker solidarity and communal ideological thinking. 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. (Rhetoric:"People love gossip and drama sire.") Ultimately this serves to disenfranchise the actual issue, and in truth, I feel as though it is less than morally correct to air these sorts of grievances in relation to the legal dispute to the public forum for debate, as these are interpersonal disputes that can only be resolved by the people who are involved, not by the larger internet community as a whole who quite simply, weren't there. It also benefits only one party in this, which is Ilmar Kompus himself, who I am sure most of us agree based on his motivations and interview, is definitely in the wrong no matter who you support. In a way, he has inextricably tied his fight with the workers so that if he goes down, they all do, and there's no guarantee that Kurvitz can or will extend employment to them if the dispute is resolved in his favor. I feel as though this paints a "both sides-ism" that we're expected to adopt into our understanding on the issue, which is that the executives/investors are bad because they are predatory businessmen exploiting the success of the game for their own benefit and attempting to cut the creators out to solidify their position at the head of a now award winning indie studio that could see success in the future, vs. the creator is bad because he was verbally abusive to employees, did not work on the game after the release, is problematic as a person, and attempted to steal his IP back in very unclear methods and start his own company with the same IP (which I can't see that ever working without even greater legal disputes arising) But 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." - simiman
While you view the legal dispute as the central focus, perhaps PMG simply don't see it that way, or at least as strictly as you. Both the legal dispute over the IP and the workplace toxicity are aspects of the controversy (or at least are two related controversies), and they reported on them. At the very least, Ilmar claimed Robert was fired for this reason, so PMG needed to investigate the veracity of this claim. I think there's a good chance Ilmar is using this to his advantage to cover his situation, but it's not PMGs fault that there seems to be truth to the allegations of toxicity, even if it's not why they were fired. I would argue that the toxicity situation is more related than just a distraction though. Ilmar is clearly good at business. I'm sure it would have been more financially sensible for him to keep Robert on board if he wasn't causing trouble. Robert's vision and writing skills were undeniably a valuable asset. The executives probably realized that their business was not sustainable if Robert was to continue harming the company internally by trying to lead, and since Robert had no intention on giving up his direct leadership (even by leading indirectly, mediated by the replacement lead writer), they decided to remove him. Did they steal Robert's life work by swindling him with shady corporate deals? Of course, and I think just about everyone who watched this is on the same page. It's obviously wrong, but I also think Robert's toxicity as a leader is an important part of the story.
Don't really agree with you tut tutting Robert Kurvitz for not addressing the individual PERSONAL grievances of the others interviewed. The scope of their troubles would ideally be ameliorated through a one on one discussion between friends or mediated by peers in the collective or discussed in an HR meeting. His issue is that the owner of a stupid mall likely stole away the thing he and his friend's had created collectively over two decades. If not technically criminal (as the law is nearly universally on the side of those with the deeper pockets), it is brutally unethical what Ilmar and his shadow partners have done. And, as interviewed, Argo Tuulik essentially says that it would be most fair and equitable if they (current and former Zaum writers) were both allowed to develop the IP further, in separate projects, in a shared universe. Why no hand wringing at Illmar for not offering his opinion of those statements? Because for Kuvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere that could never happen, they would not be allowed, it's already being parroted as "stealing IP".
![Judicial Opinions: What Makes Disco Elysium a Modern Classic? [Full Spoilers]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n_7ngJDbUQE/mqdefault.jpg)
Two things can be true at once:
1) Robert can be a creative genius that is a bully and a terrible boss to work under.
2) Ilmar (along with other shareholders) stole the company from right under Robert's and Rostov's noses and are using these claims of bullying to make their firing look less suspicious.
*Centrist achievement pops up in the corner*
(I agree of course, I also got that achievement)
Welcome to the Kingdom of Conscience.
Yup, being the world's most laughable centrist never felt better.
@beehive MORALIST WIN OUT ✊✊✊ TOTAL ULTRALIBERAL ELIMINATION
This is a man that should never be in a leadership position.
It is an incredible testament to the creative process behind Disco Elysium that even after being wronged and feeling hurt, Argo said that he wishes everyone including Robert could have some sort of split of the rights to create within their shared universe of Elysium. Really just reminds me how terribly cruel copyright ownership can be to creative teams like this who are qually as invested in their projects as their leaders are.
Almost as if everyone involved in the work should have an equal say in how the work is produced.
Some sort of worker control of the means of production.
Because I'll be honest, as much as Kurvitz says he's a communist, it feels rather hollow when there are so many other people who worked at ZA/UM who had so much less control over the company and IP than he did.
Other capitalist shareholders took the most, through at least underhanded if not outright illegal means.
He still hoarded control to himself and close friends instead of trusting all his fellow workers.
@@Minihood31770 I probably have a different perspective than many, not being a creative of any type myself, but it seems so often that people forget that intellectual property is private property too, and exists so it can be exploited for profit. I haven't finished the video yet, but I think yours are very similar to the impressions I'll come away with.
@Minihood31770 that's less his fault and more the fault of capitalism
By now you should be aware that copyright was designed to control creators on behalf of business from the beginning.
Out of everyone speaking in this interview, his words were definitely the ones that hit the hardest for me. As a former friend, close to the creation process of DE before it was even a game, his was a position most prone to be resentful and spit venom, and he _still_ defended Robert's claim to the IP, even as he criticised him. It genuinely broke my heart to see.
Several things seem very true all at once:
- Robert loved his world very much and wanted control over it, perhaps to the point where he tried to take some things with him that he legally had no right to
- Robert was at times cruel to his writers and deeply incompetent in his leadership role even outside of the crunch period
- Crunch deeply affected Robert, Helen and Roslov and maybe did significant damage
- Helen was pushed off a glass cliff. She was promoted or acknowledged as a lead, then upper management barely communicated with her and said things that weren't in line with reality, so she did not do as good a job as she could have
- Robert, Roslov and Helen weren't very post launch and final cut ended up being made by the people under them
- Ilmar Kompas has made some extremely shady deals and found a way to exploit people recovering from intense burnout into signing away their rights
- Some of the people who made Disco Elysium will now forever be cut off from the thing they made. Even if a sequel is made and they end up with some stake in the IP, they can never work on it again and they have no ownership over anything they actually made. And that is just very sad.
boosting this take. I think you summarize important beats of the story well here
@@beebalmbadil Ilmar sets off so many red flags
this. i get that ppl might complain about equivocation or sneer at the "centrist" take, but pointing out that multiple parties could be at fault here should come as no surprise. We're talking about humans working together for 5 or so years on a single project. Show me a man that hasn't done something dumb, petty or evil in a year's time.
@@TheNSJaws"Show me a man who hasn't done something dumb, petty, or evil in a year's time" is one of THE quotes. Seriously, that's some well-said shit - you should be proud of how much I'm gonna steal it from you.
Oh jeez, that's kinda the whole situation here isn't it? I swear, I didn't mean to - I was just making a joke.
But really, that's a very quotable line you have there.
@@gabby3036 by all means, if I can give you a green light to steal I would. But as it stands, you'll have to use it as your yearly bad deed. I'm sure there's worse ways to cash in your karma.
Sounds like businessmen being duplicitous, artists being neurotic, and workers being shafted once again.
A tale as old as time.
It's like something out of a really lame and boring tv show. Totally unbefitting of anarcho-communist auteurs with advanced conceptions of worker employer relations. One thinks that one of the first actions the core team would have done is to to make the company some kind of cooperative or something, the hierarchical structure of the company basically made it so that tensions and hostilities were inevitable.
Pretty much. This whole situation is like its own Disco Elysium
@@brandonmorel2658 I always thought ZA/UM was a cooperative, specially with the "ZA/UM cultural association" thing I just assumed there was no chance they were a regular ass company
@@brandonmorel2658 not to totally absolve the ZA/UM guys, but they needed capital from 1 of the richest people in Estonia and several other business people to even fund the project, if it hadnt been for their money the project wouldnt have even happened. We see once again why systems are more powerful than individuals, its hard to make a more egalitarian work structure when you need money which is held by institutions and individuals who will definitely not cooperate with this, as they are only looking after their own financial self interest. "Capital has the ability to subsume everything under itself" etc
I assume they would have had trouble getting financing as a worker coop
Something that really stood out to me is the way in which it *appears* Tõnis is avoiding having to repay a settlement for defrauding people, by having his partner be a shareholder instead of him, to hide his money from the Estonian government.
When interviewing Ilmar, Ilmar's response to this was to say that:
1) This arrangement was in place before he took control of the company
2) "Everyone had agreed to it", ie, this isn't something that he did behind the backs of the shareholders that are suing him.
3) After he gained control of the company, the payments through Studio 38 stopped (but, presumably the proxy shareholder situation remains the same)
...but what the heck kind of defense is that?!? It kinda sounds like what he's saying here is: "Yes, we ARE helping our friend Tõnis avoid repaying the money he legally owes for defrauding people, through a sketchy and potentially illegal scheme... but don't worry! Everyone here agreed to do that, not just me!"
Am I crazy, or is this a **huge** thing to just gloss over? It kinda feels like the people running this company were complicit in helping Tõnis hide his income/shares from the Estonian courts. Which, if true, speaks to lax morals and an extremely sketchy way of doing business on the part of everyone involved in running this company.
*EDIT:* I don't mean to criticize PMG by saying that this was "glossed over". I suspect PMG had very good reasons for not saying something that could be construed as an accusation of illegal activity. The UK has very strict libel laws, after all.
Which is why I wanted to make a comment pointing it out!
Agreed. It made me realize everyone here is were complicit and only brought it up after they were screwed.
It very much is, and a good reporter would have pressed him on that.
But they feel as though it's justified because the "scandal" happened because of the financial crash rather than criminal intent, and that outsiders wouldn't understand the nuance because the primary Estonian news source on it is owned by one of the aggrieved
parties. Not saying that justification checks out cuz i dont know emough either way and dont care, just that I understand why they don't think of themselves as criminals.
@@SixArmedSweater It's also just not that important to the questions about disco elysium's IP
I think perhaps the reason why People Make Games in particular glossed over it is because it wasn’t relevant to the situation actually being discussed, and pressing Ilmar on it further runs the risk of the interview being less productive due to fear or whatever that Ilmar would feel as a result. A generally important story, but only as relevant as People Make Games made it to the Disco Elysium story in particular.
Saying they are justified in stealing the IP because the dude was a pain to work with is crazy
Who is saying that?
@@orlandonerz2999 Ilmar's letter to Robert at the end of the video
@@orlandonerz2999 dude c'mon
Stolen? Dude was and remains a minor shareholder from foundation of the studio to now.
@@EugenijusKreniswhat does that boot taste like?
Only 48 mins on but deeply obsessed with Ilmar being asked if he understands the weird ethics of the shareholder situation and just saying "well you can't hold things from his past against him, also all the shareholders agreed on it. No I can't prove that"
story tellers?? LMAO💀💀
I mean, Helen Hindepere isn't any better on subject. When confronted with the same statement by 3 people including 2 of the writers that she didn't do any substantial work on Final Cut, all she has to say is that she is happy she worked with those people and she is open to communication. Basically dodging the whole accusation.
Same. Feels like it should be a simple, "Yes, it's weird."
"well you can't hold things from his past against him"
Yes. Yes I can. He's a smug and self-admitted debt dodger. Belongs in prison and his dispersed and hidden assets confiscated ruthlessly and used to pay his debts. And he should be thankful if that's the worst that happens to him. Anyone that dodgy probably owes money to folks who would think nothing of turning him into literal dog food as an object lesson. How he's still walking around without a cane is beyond me.
Lol yeah it's super weird and sketchy but my fuck does the main dude sound awful as well, especially for someone that's supposed to be for "worker rights". It seems like he's really obsessed with ownership, which goes against a ton of what he apparently believes. Which is even weirder that he tried to steal the IP he willingly sold to the company for compensation.
This is exactly the kind of content that needs to be supported and its creation financially sustainable. Thank you!
Hear Hear! I literally paused it at 1:30 and join their patreon because they always do solid work.
Was a similar realisation after the Roblox video for me, well worth the few quid a month!
I'm going to go and disagree. I thank them for the interviews and the access but...
But the whole thing is a mess and kind of bias. A timeline of events was needed, my blood boil, everytime I saw the Justin Keenan guy, calling the writing leads lazy, and criticizing them to go on vacation, but the context it lacks is that this happens after the fucking release of the game, after a fucking crunch. Have you guys never been on a long project? And now of course he gets Robert's job. His interview added nothing but "Robert bad" without the real context.
And then we have the final thoughts of the video: "I don't know, Robert hurt the feelings of some workers and didnt care much for them, so It's fine if he loses his IP, I guess"
NOICE
I agree and believe poor, unworthy content become banned and rejected. Produce morally and consume morally.
Video game journalism is about the least important journalism I can think of. It's probably equal in importance to sports journalism.
Okay, I work in financial analysis for an international company and, in situations with missing context and messy books, the cleanest narrative you tend to be able to paint is “Was this transaction, listed here, registered there?” In the case of Kaur’s accusation of Ilmar, regardless of how the case shook out, we can ask: did Ilmar pay back the amount Kaur accused him of (essentially) embezzling? If the answer is yes, that payment is tantamount to an admission of Kaur’s accusation. As Kaur suggested; if Ilmar paid back money earned legitimately from the company, but only did so after borrowing money from the same company in order to gain the position to accrue that wealth, that’s fraud. Straight up. It really is the Gordian Knot of cases, when you look at the numbers. Regardless of controversy, were the funds used to acquire a majority legitimate? If not, Ilmar’s committed a crime. And, you know, given his history…
Very elucidating, the crux of the matter is whether a financial crime/fraud was committed or not, the rest is smokes and mirrors to distract from that.
@@esilva032 Pretty much. Listen, we can legislate whether or not Kurvitz is a misogynist, and whether the leadership at the top of the team are responsible for a toxic work environment - hardly going to take long for *that* debate - but we can do so *after* we determine if a crime’s been committed, and whether the people we think are a bit shitty own the property they helped create.
Exactly my conclusion. But I have a doubt which I hope someone can clarify.
1. The decison to agree to selling the company IP for 1 dollar and then the same company buying it back for 4.8 Million is green lit by which individual/group of individuals?
Who has the final say in selling the IP? Exploring that connection will add more light to the fraud done by Kompas (imo, I think he clearly comitted fraud).
@@sarthakmishra1415 Kinder was director and approved of it, from the sounds of it in this video he probably signed off on it without realizing what exactly he had signed off on which is why he dumped his initial court case against Ilmar because it would make him look like an idiot and likely alienate him further from the collective he had joined. If it was pointed out in court he would have very publicly lost credibility and status with them. I'm fairly certain he sold out because he still got caught on that in the end as evident by him switching sides and then going silent.
I can't draw conclusions only from interviews but I felt Argo's pains during his intervention. He seems genuinely hurt by the whole situation. It also seems to this day he is still processing what happened.
I don't remember if it was in this or in the full interview, but he mentioned how he is a lot less affected then many of his peers who received death threats and such, because he doesn't have any internet presence.
Yeah, I believe the inclusion of Argo's interview is probably one of the most important sources of information in this whole interview circus. Argo's honesty is incredibly clarifying and illuminating and you can tell he still struggles emotionally with the fallout to this day.
Where Argo was honest about the unhealthy dynamic from the strict and unyielding leader-follower relationship he had developed with Robert to the point that his wife was concerned really added important context to the story. This allowed my understanding of the relationship between Robert and Rostov to make sense. At some point Robert was questioning Rostov's ability to be the art lead and tried to get him removed from his post (and actually succeeded), but then strangely enough, he later riled Rostov back up AGAIN in order to get him to help them both take back their original leadership roles. Rostov seems to have just gone with it and I wouldn't be surprised if Rostov and Robert currently still have that dynamic.
It's no surprise to me that Robert probably has a very charming personality, which gets people to follow him naturally. This sort of thing usually also allows him to be cruel to others and have that cruelty be tolerated without imploding the group. As a leader, Robert has a lot of work to do in order to do a better job of building a company because dismissing the hard work of others without providing any sort of guidance other than "I don't like it. It's trash. Go do it again." is totally useless. Robert contributed a lot of ideas to this project but was an active hindrance against the development of ideas from his team. Not only that, but he manipulated the newer members of the team by dangling admission to the "in-group" (this sort of behavior is incredibly toxic) like a carrot when it was obvious that he had no intention of honoring it. This is something for which he needs to take responsibility.
No man is an island. Everyone needs help at some point. Nobody undertakes a project of this magnitude alone. It surprises me that Robert has such little gratitude for the team who helped him bring his ideas to life. (Note: I am not counting Kaur, Ilmar, Margus, and Anu in any of this. The issue with those individuals are massive but constitute another topic entirely.)
@@pnpgutterfold Agreed. Robert very much gives me the vibe of someone with a "reality distortion field", as they called it back in the day. That doesn't mean he's *wrong* on the material facts of the legal battle, but he definitely doesn't have the moral high ground he thinks he does. For all that he talks about "asking himself" whether or not he's good to work with, I don't think he's ever seriously confronted what a good teammate looks like, let alone made progress on achieving it.
You can hear the glint in his eyes while talking about it in his voice. It hirts so much that he's a victim of this entire situation.
@@pnpgutterfoldthe whole removing Rostov and then riling him up and invigorating him to gain his position back is something I'd feel only the Claire's could pull off, with how ridiculous and unfair it is.
That second interview was heartbreaking to watch. You can just see the stress and struggle the guy is ging through while retelling everything. I don't know if this is because the events themselves were stressing, or talking bad about people he (used to) look up to stresses him.
He sounded the most truthful out of everyone that was interviewed in the video.
Also the fact that he doesn't even seem to realize that this was toxic behavior is incredibly sad to me.
You see him describing in detail moments of public humiliation and bullying that very obviously deeply affected him and when pushed on if it was toxic behavior he's only like "Oh I guess you could say that this probably was toxic"
Like this to me points to the fact that this wasn't an isolated incident, this happened so many times that he internalized it as normal.
@@davbou It sounds like a good thing he has his wife. "She said I was sliding into follower mentality again," later ,"The abuse made us better at following his vision".
@SimokVI thanks for this perspective. This is what I felt, but I did not realize.
@@davbou the full interview with him provides additional context.
In short, by Argo's admission, he felt Alexander Rostov was the one fucked over the most. Rostov was another someone caught in Robert's orbit without the cognizance to escape - a reflection of Argo's younger self. Furthermore, Argo asserts that the needs of the company (and its 100 some-odd employees) are greater than those of Robert.
I don't think Argo Tuulik normalized anything. I feel he recognizes his circumstances as extraordinary and is, at present, grateful for them.
Ilmar's defense is "Oh they're story tellers. They do that well" are you kidding me dude? -.-
I'm amazed Chris didn't react more to that. It really stuck out to me as a crazy thing to say.
I fully believe that Robert Kurvitz was a nightmare to work for, especially during a crunch period. I can also fully believe that when the game turned into a big success he checked out and did very little work for a while. But the timeline according to Ilmar Kompas makes no sense. If he did no work for two years, then how was he making the work environment so toxic? You literally can't yell at people if you're not around. They were clearly happy to tolerate his behaviour when it was making them money. It only became a problem when they started to get into a conflict about the buy-out. And their explanation of the buy-out shenanigans amounts to 'trust me bro'. My hunch is that Kompas absolutely did steal the company, but had been saving up ammunition in advance to use against Kurvitz in order to give him a pretext to fire him if necessary, and muddy the waters afterward. None of that justifies Kurvitz' behaviour towards his colleagues, but that behaviour still falls a long way short of criminal... unlike fraud.
The use of the word 'toxic' is unhelpful, as it's a very vague term that people inevitably view through the filter of their own experiences. It can mean anything from being a bit passive-aggressive or domineering through to full-fledged criminal abuse, and the overall effect is that when they hear it a lot of people tend to either assume the absolute worst or dismiss the allegations entirely, depending on their personal politics, rather than take a more balanced look at the claims.
Also consider that many of these people were friends with Robert for decades prior, I could imagine that the stress of A) working on a personally meaningful game for five years and B) feeling like your co-shareholder is messing you around, could absolutely make someone burnt out, and when people are burnt out, that's also when they start snapping and being a prick to other people.
I agree with this 100%. I think the video does a poor job about focusing on literal criminality vs Robert's potentially crappy but obviously non-criminal behavior. If the Kompus takeover did not happen, and Robert ultimately was fired for being so disagreeable and unable to be worked with, then there would be no drama. Ultimately, if Kompus' shady actions are targeted and dealt with, then these workers and artists can solve or handle their personal disputes however they see fit, and it won't really be any of my business.
@@solidpython4964 I disagree about the video's focus. I think they did a really good job thoroughly exploring all of the allegations that have been made, and you have to consider that some of those allegations are around why Robert was fired. Since we can't know exactly what Kompus was thinking and what his reasoning was, only what people say, it's a very responsible thing to take a look at if any of anyone's claims could be true, and that includes examining the possibility validity of "Robert was fired because of misconduct." Also, PMG isn't a team of lawyers, they would be unqualified to weigh in on if the exchanges were criminal or not, especially in an ongoing court case.
@@sydneygorelick7484 I mean I'm not asking for that, but the original given reason of IP theft doesn't seem to get as much focus as the later revised reason of toxicity. It seems rather obvious that Robert was very easy to pin as difficult to work with, and he definitely seems like that kind of obtrusive tortured artist who disrupts normal collaborative work. But there seems to be a clear possibility that this is the excuse after some shady suspect stuff went down. And to be fair, it goes both ways, where Robert and Aleksander seem to be focusing on their dismissal as a web of conspiracy and not because of legitimate work reasons. But it felt like 2/3 of the run-time was focused on he-said-she-said work dispute drama and not really on the material issues presented by the corporate takeover. Feels like wires are crossed here, and it is not clear at all why or if these 2 threads are even related.
@@sydneygorelick7484 doesn't matter what he was fired for. This is a criminal act and theft of IP vs some guy maybe being a bad boss and trying to sway the public opinion of him so people will buy the next ZAUM game.
This is definitely a story thats happening on 2 very different levels.
One is the theft of an entire company by corrupt financiers, and the other is cultural issues within the company.
The theft seems to be entirely unrelated to the internal culture of the studio. Definitely give Robert some credit for his statement that the culture and personal issues that plauged the company are now being used to justify the theft.
Of course, the biggest victims of all this is the employees and honestly if Robert does manage to get back the company him and his core team need to really think about how they're gonna restructure how leadership and creative credit is handled.
The way I see it they're not so disconnected. The disempowering of Robert's lead team seemed to happen not long after the takeover.
It's entirely possible they saw the creators as unmanageable, and pulled some underhanded and possibly illegal moves to manage it. As a matter of fact, I bet that's what happened. The investor gets a personal interest in his investment, realizes the genius creator is... best as a solo writer to put it mildly, and starts looking for ways to get rid of the guy. If he's already being shady with the studio 38 stuff, he'll be more than happy to use shady tactics to remove what he sees as the nut job ruining his business
@@mikek6298 It's morally different, though, in the sense that neither justifies the other. Robert was an asshole because of his own personal issues and the company was stolen because the investor is a capitalist ghoul.
I think if Robert and Helen were better leaders they would have been able to get the others to follow them to another company. And the team being ready to follow them would cause Ilmar to have to make a deal where those two could remain leads if he wanted to make more DLC or a sequel that fans would accept. But it appears the rest of the team weren't willing to continue working under Robert and Helen. And Robert wasn't willing to stick around with less control.
Speaking of Ilmar, I would have really liked to see him be made to lay out exactly what the "transaction" that he refuses to call a loan was if it was not a loan. If it was a payment for the delivery of something of value to all of the shareholders he should say exactly what that value was if he wants us to believe that it wasn't loan or even outright theft of ZA/UM money. I'd have also liked to hear precisely what Studio 38 did to earn the money it received. Because if Studio 38 didn't provide value equal to money paid, it looks like money being paid under the table to Tonis.
The documentarist is not offended by possible financial fraud or creative theft. He is far, far, far more offended that the subject of the documentary was angry and bitter about having this life's work stolen from him, didn't appreciate that the documentary was a set of jangling keys, and refused to participate in his game. The documentarist then finished his investigation with a personal complaint of how rude Kurvitz was to him, and portrayed this as the ultimate Gotcha! of the investigation.
@@Hammerzeiterrrr I think they're trying to do a moderationist, "both sides are wrong" kind of argument where he needs to present the perceived extremes as immoral and ignoring the true victims, the workers. Very moralist of him, i suppose.
I think an interesting thing to consider here is how much of Robert and co's mismanagement seemed to stem pretty directly from higher management (in particularly Kaur). Not defending or justifying their actions in any way at all, but it really stuck out to me that Justin complained that Helen wasn't communicating deadlines to the writers, but Helen later says that she herself wasn't kept in the loop about when deadlines were (at around 1:40:00 she mentions being told of the writing lock with only 2 weeks notice by Kaur), and it seems like what she understood her role as lead writer was was considerably different than what others took it to be. There's also Robert talking about how the deadlines were all coming through from upper management, which were responsible for the crunch - which seems really believable to me.
I think something which I haven't seen talked about a lot is how the 2 years where Robert and Rostov "checked out" seems to coincide pretty closely with when the shareholder situation started to sour. Again, I'm not excusing it because I can see it being extremely frustrating for people like Justin and Kaspar to have to pick up the slack when their supposed bosses weren't doing much of anything, but it seems to me like Robert in particular would have been wrapped up in all the legal/corporate stuff around that time which would've made it far more difficult to work in a writers capacity. This on top of the general managerial/VO stuff which seemed to be what Helen was dealing with for the most part over that time. It's speculative, but it just adds another level to me of how this whole issue really is just such a mess of conflicting reports.
Ultimately though, I'm still pretty firmly on the side of Ilmar (and to a lesser extent Kaur) being scumbags. When Robert describes how Kaur and Ilmar talked him into signing over the IP rights to ZA/UM permanently, its hard to not read that as two professional businessman taking advantage of the fact that the owner of a valuable IP wasn't particularly business savvy. Robert obviously should have gotten legal representation before making such a massive decision, but the fact that the repercussions weren't communicated to him by people claiming to be looking out for his best interest is pretty scummy to me (even if it isn't technically illegal)
@@pnpgutterfold Yeah I agree 100%. The more I’ve looked into this since I wrote this comment originally, the more I reckon Kaur got off very, very lightly here and it’s kind of soured me a little on the video a whole - there’s a brief mention of him having a “chaotic role” in the story early on, but after that there’s little direct examination of his actions, motivations, or responsibility in what a clusterfuck the whole situation became. I feel that’s in part because he didn’t want to be a part of the video so maybe PMG didn’t feel comfortable focusing too heavily on him without getting his side of the story (as that does seem to be a driving motivation behind this video more broadly), but I don’t really think you can do that when he’s so clearly driving a huge amount of the conflict here.
There is a special breed of businessman in Eastern Europe which have something i call 'chronic scheming'. They learned they way of doing business in late soviet union or in 90-es, when system where non-functional, incredibly unwieldy and corrupt, so doing business was inevitably tied to using combinations shady schemes to work through loopholes. Some of them basically unable to think about business model without scheming it around the corners of the legality even if it's is not actually more convenient or profitable.
Also, Robert does not seem to completely comprehend that creation of the game is a team effort and being a lead is also about people and processes not only about his creative vision. Likely as someone who does not seem to respect his own well-being in pursuit of creative goals he don't respect others well-being in pursuit of *his* creative goals.
This is exactly why real journalists have ethical standards that would prevent them from pursuing a story that was clearly being interfered with by one side like this. Ilmar pressured his employees into speaking up in spite of them preferring to speak off the record. PMG chased the story past the proper trail of evidence and got led down a rabbit trail
you have a very good point which many tend to ignore. the original team took responsibility for the whole project and the whole set of poor mortgage-burdened employees all the way until they no longer could
there is a difference between nuance and grasping for straws where it is easy, because you can't pose the hard questions. ilmar got away without being confronted with a clear timeline, yet robert was tossed into a gallery of broken relationships that he obviously feels strongly about
maybe next time People Make Games should cover corporate mergers, and not the video game industry. or just go work for the sun
@@rrrrthats4rsWhat evidence do you have for that claim?
Mind melting imagining the logistics of putting this all together. Incredible work.
i like the music you play in your videos. good picks.
Coming from a huge fan of the video game, I had little to no idea of what the behind-the-scenes drama looked like. Thank you for this. You’re doing amazing work. ❤️
"Dora Klindžić broadly echoed Tuulik’s sentiment: “I've seen good work done at ZA/UM. I've also seen management and production staff terrorizing creatives, lying, playing power games, turning people against each other, destroying relationships and people's self-esteem. For this, there have been no repercussions.”
She also emphasized that some workers would not only lose their jobs, but would have to upend their whole lives as a result of the layoffs: “As a reward for our hard work, some of us are even slated to lose our immigration status in the UK and will have to evacuate the country. We will be gone by next week, but those who remain are grappling with a place irrevocably changed.
“The mask has slipped from the face of capital. What remains at ZA/UM is a cold, careless company where managers wage war against their own creatives, where artistry is second to property, and where corporate strategy is formed by an arrogant disdain for their own audience.”"
Dora Klindžić and Argo Tuulik are truly magnificent artists.
Amazing how ilmar always has enough personal money in the amounts of millions to makes all those purchases, but the only amount to have officially been recorded is 300,000. Which which which... well, it's a more logical amount for a man on his position, at that time, to have in savings.
Also he dismisses questions about ethics regarding the decisions by saying "well, Robert was aware too" or "it was all in the benefit of the group". Doesn't make it less illegal mate, just goes to show how quickly you're willing to throw someone else under the bus.
Also very convenient that "we were a small company" and "the meetings weren't recorded" is used in a transaction of millions of euros when I've worked in (smaller) companies where transactions of $5000 were heavily documented.
I mean, devil's advocate argument, a businessman addressing a loose group of punk, communists. They probably don't care, or care enough to understand so why record it for posterity? I don't necessarily agree with that take but could be a logical conclusion.
@@ClockworkGFX it's also a well known business person conducting several loans, and sales and re-sales in units of millions. You'd think he'd have documentation about it.
@@ryanrobot7975 could be a great out for some sketchy stuff. I think the door swings both ways.
@@ClockworkGFXno way. If he is a businessman then he is aware of the importance of documentation and consciously forewent it.
Even though this is obviously a very heavy and unpleasant topic, I have to say I'm so glad to be seeing more of the faces behind this game! The team always seemed to be very non-public facing, so there wasn't honestly a lot of detailed info around on who these people were and where they came from. Hearing things about their history and who was doing what in the game's development from people like Argo is great, because the only voices that have ever really been present so far have been Robert, Helen (and Aleksander). Evrart Claire is amazing! Cuno is amazing! Now, obviously the work was being done under the creative vision of Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere, so they should get a lot of credit for that, but everyone else was also clearly putting in a hefty amount of creative energy as well!
I’m no expert but I’m not sure that being bad managers is as big of an issue as Illmar buying ip for 1 euro, selling it back for 4.5 million euros, and then buying majority share of the company without written agreement or documentation of the other shareholders
Yeah, the false equivalency here is staggering. Video tries so hard to be fair to both sides that it just ends up muddying the waters. From what it looks and is alleged, the CEO defrauded the company and used company funds to buy shares for himself to then oust the remaining "minority" shareholders. His only defense is "yeah there's no paper trace on the shareholders signing up on this bc we're such a small and inexperienced bunch" and "my contribution was much larger than 1 quid, but I'll not tell you any details about that" -- and the interviewer left it at that?
Bringing in the other team members to talk about hardships during development and perceived personality flaws isn't nuance, it's pretty much irrelevant.
Well, Ilmar couldn't say anything else for legal reasons, and it's exactly what Kurvitz did as well when he said that he does not want the interview to be fully released.
Also, I beg to differ, the problems encountered during the development were pretty important. For a community that keeps bashing on ZA/UM and their employees for stealing Kurvitz's work, it's important to show that in fact, DE is not entirely Kurvitz's work and that people working at ZA/UM were also part of the creation of the game. I don't think the video was made in order to resolve legal disputes, but rather to show DE's community a bigger picture of the situation
@@urbantwilightvery well put. There is a blatant false equivalency on this video. If anything, it will only foster more drama...
And now Komar is on trial lmao
There are two events here that bear investigation:
1) Ilmar's acquisition of a majority stake in the company.
2) Robert et al.'s firing.
The first issue is a legal one, and it is hard to know all of the facts. It seems shady and morally problematic at best, illegal at worst (I struggle to imagine how a 1 pound IP becomes worth over 4 million without becoming an actual produced game first, no matter what contributions Ilmar claims to have made). Even if everyone knew it was happening, that doesn't make it not shady. And I don't honestly believe that Ilmar is the kind of guy to not keep records, if the records would benefit him--I would certainly not deal in millions of pounds without clear records of the process, and it's laughable to imagine anyone would.
The second issue, the firing, is much squishier, because the burden of proof is much squishier for when it is okay to fire someone. The accounts of toxicity are valid in terms of investigating this event. And honestly, I can imagine that the intense pressure of creating a videogame (for people who had never created one before) paired with Robert's personality would make for a toxic atmosphere.
I think PMG here have a bias toward human stories (they are about People who Make Games), but the effect is that the second event (the firing and whether it was justified) has been tossed in front of them like a golden ball, and they have gotten so deeply invested in that second event and figuring out what went on there, in part because there was more material available to them on it, that they never properly followed the first thread, which, again, is the one where something criminal may indeed have happened. The firing might be right or wrong, but it is likely not illegal in itself.
I think this speaks to the fact that PMG are well meaning but fundamentally poorly experienced/positioned to do the type of investigation truly needed here.
Having worked in multiple startups and corporate settings for several years now, this video felt like staring into a collage of my past experiences. There are people like these everywhere in the world. But Kurvitz, in particular, stands out.
Not because I've worked with someone like him, but because I've been friends with someone like him. Argo saying the follower leader thing was something I deeply related with, and while I am not married yet, I and my peers were lucky enough to snap out of it.
I genuinely feel for Robert, this is his life's work, but the tortured artist often fails to see how their own actions inevitably end up being used against them.
I have been in a relationship with this leader/follower dynamic and it's extremely hurtful. I genuinely hope Robert will some day reflect on his behaviour there and choose to do better.
@@AfutureV Unfortunately. As a design student I see how my friends undersell their hard earned skills bc they're passionate. I hate to act as cut-throat as the business type at negotiating, yet the world won't let us share art and techniques without backstabbing us.
Very much so. One thing I noticed that raised significant red flags was how overbearing he appeared to be in his interview in regards to Rostov, including cutting him off a couple of times and completing his thought process for him. That certainly tracks with a lot of the problems and complaints the other former employees mentioned. It's also very obvious he is on a warpath, and very much not seeing the forest for the trees in terms of his relationship with others. So this would, at the very least, make the allegations from Argos and Kasper very credible. And it is equally telling that none of the people who have been with ZA/UM from the very start deny that this game and its world are his baby and duly credit him for it.
And if the situation regarding the making of the Final Cut does seem to include a fair deal of bad organisation from all involved, it also seems to have more than its share of divide and conquer tactics from the upper management. It's obvious that crunch was happening left and right, and if I certainly understand Rostov, Kurvitz and Hindpere taking personal time, it's obvious that this fostered resentment, which makes me question both why didn't the other overworked employees rightfully demand the same time off and why didn't Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere demand the same out of solidarity. In the end, and as it stood, they were all crunching for the financial gain of the money people, and that should be an issue where they all stood together on the same side. But on this, there were clearly divide and conuer tactics at play, it seems. And on that note, it does strike me as odd that some of the other interviewed employees seem so content to go to bat for corporate even after so many clear examples of their very shady behaviour.
@@thegrimner "why didn't Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere demand the same out of solidarity"
Because they (or at least Robert, as a dominating personality the others just follows/are manipulated to follow) do not have any solidarity to the workers. Why didn't Kaspar or Argo, or Helen, or any of the other workers own anything of the company or the IP? Because Kurvitz don't care about workers. He cares only about himself and his own creative vision - no matter how much of it is created by anyone else. In his mind, he is the sole creator, it is his child, he sacrificed for it. He even sacrificed friendships for it.
But he can't see past his fucking greed and ego.
@@Taeerom Incredible nuance there, buddy. I mean, beyond the fact that not a single one of his coworkers disputes the fact that the world and the story are Kurvitz's brainchild, it could just as easily be argued that someone like Justin Keenan kind of has a vested interest in getting promoted at Kurvitz's expense, which is why he and Petteri came up with that frankly ridiculous story about Robert trying to sneak the IP away from the studio.
Notice that I said "it could" though, because I am much, much less inclined to jump into conclusions. WHich is why, if I had to guess, this has all the signs of management turning workers against each other using and exploiting pre existing issues to widen the rifts between them. Again, no one disputes Kurvitz and Rostov and Hindpere worked like hell on the game, or their mention of intense crunch; what's incredibly contradictory, even within the other workers of ZA/UM, is the level of involvement expected of him for the Final Cut; but as for rest after years of crunch? Yeah, I'd very much say it's earned; for every one. That people resent him for both taking time off and simultaneously wanting to be involved, and nowhere there are questions being asked regarding what are clearly unrealistic timeframes from management should give time for pause; as should the fact that some of the workers interviewed do seem to go above and beyond to defend managers that were involved in what's at best pretty unethical, and legally shady corporate takeover. Not that I don't understand why people who uprooted themselves have a vested interest in keeping their jobs, but by the same token, their vested interests should be taken into consideration.
Robert seems like an unpleasant boss, likely exacerbated by the stress of making the game, but it does seem like he was shafted here with his behaviour used as a later excuse to cover up the fact his ideas and the company were stolen from him.
Yeah it really doesn't sit right with me, it feels like the people who have legitimate issues with him ended up being used in this battle of him against the money people
@@Tardsmat which is basically what he says on his letter at the end, he should acknowledge his toxic behavior but it has nothing to do with what happened to the company
Yeah I doubt anything would have been done about his behavior, if it wasn't convenient for taking control of the company from him
Bad people make good things. Worse people steal those good things. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
@@yggdrasilburnes And good, honest ppl get screwed over by both hoards of idiots. Crucial party missing here.
The developers and artists on team are big part of the reason DE is a miracle as it exists.
I just want to give Argo a hug and let him know how much his work means to everyone.
Same. He seemed genuinely pained by having to reveal such a vulnerable part of his work and his own personal life....
Argo seems like he is all heart. Listening him talk was almost painful because you can see how difficult his emotions on this topic is.
He is just a pretentious commie
I love Argo. I slowed the video back down to normal speed because he was so lovable and gripping to listen to. We must protect himb
Argo's the real hero in all of this. You can tell he really appreciates everyone who pitched in for that "one magical moment" from all angles, including those who provided the money to the ousted visionaries. He's still hoping for everyone to somehow have a part in all of this, while also realizing that everyone deserve this more than one guy deserves it.
This is what journalism should be. Amazing job! Keep it up!
You acquired majority share of the company? With no paper trail? During the pandemic? While In cahoots with an established embezzler?
That's fine. Makes sense.
That Kurvitz guy is a bully you say? Outrageous!
Yeah, I feel embarrassed for eating up PMG's reporting. I would have continued to be ignorant had I not stumbled upon Jamrock Hobo's updates. They really provided perspective. I'd like PMG to issue an update apology amendment/addendum (or a separate follow-up video) that addresses their shortcomings in the reporting of this piece.
@@pnpgutterfold This video is mostly the interviews of the real people. Both things can be equally true from this video; Kurvitz was a bastard artist, and the publisher did financial slight of hand to get everything they could. There's no shortcomings, just what the people themselves said.
@@Hypogean7 Yes, that's correct. Both of those things are equally true, but one was used to cover up and justify the other, and that was not appropriate.
@@Hypogean7Kurvitz being a bastard is not what’s on trial here.
People will watch this video and continue to focus on condemning individuals instead of impersonal systems.
PSY: 6
INT: 1
If you hired someone to manage your finances, then they used your money to buy your house, I don't think any judge would think it matters at all if you were a bad coworker or an unreliable friend. It's not hard to tell who's in the wrong here.
That was the point 😉
But what if they are REALLY bad though, your coworkers or friends?
@@gooddaytoyou5256 people don't like those kinds of stories.
@@gooddaytoyou5256 Then give the house to the co-workers or friends, not the finance manager
LOL what a bad analogy
my heart goes out to the ZA/UM employees. they spoke with such passion and love for this game.
corporate meddling will always fuck over the employees the worst.
I see lots of people (rightly!) praising Chris's reporting, but I have to point out that Anni did an INCREDIBLE job with all of the graphics and animation on this one. Amazing work, both of you!
I'd like to buy PMG from them but I don't have the money, so how about I buy their next video for 1€ and then sell it back for 4.000.000€, then I use the 4.000.000€ to buy the company, then I reimburse the for the difference with the profits from future videos? Keemaaaaaaaaan it's a good deal!
+
Agreed it’s like sound design in a video game. If no one comments on it it’s because it’s probably great and doesn’t detract from the more obvious elements, be it killer reporting or amazing graphics.
Before seen that video, I didn't fully appreciated how important video game journalism is for the people who work that industry. Thank you for your work
I'm really grateful for Argo's view of this as someone who thinks kindly of everyone on the team but also sees their flaws, especially Robert's. I agree with him, that what happened to Robert was unfair for a story that he was so instrumental in, but it's important realising that the accusations against him aren't 100% false either. I do think it's important to remember that while some stories can be important individual artistic visions, video games are a collaborative medium, and you need to make that collaboration easier, not harder.
EDIT: I wanna make it clear Robert still has the right to fight what was clearly a hostile takeover by Ilmar/whoever else made the decision to remove him, Hellen and Rostov - definitely his toxicity needs to be addressed as well but it's clear it's being used as an excuse on the money side since the original reason for his firing wasn't even the toxicity, but the alleged IP theft.
Yeah it sounds a lot like Robert is clearly a terrible person to work with but at the same time he might very well be right. It feels like any ways this goes, the chances of a new game being made in a better environment are unfortunately slim due to his denial of addressing his own extremely toxic behaviour.
Everyone needs a friend like Argo.
I have seen enough news coming out of video game studios to know that you can commit legitimate crimes as long as you are still profitable. Robert became a profit risk.
toxicity will be a background element of humanity for centuries to come, and it will show its head whenever stress accompanies it . i'm scared of people who think otherwise
@@Lovyxia It's often effortless to label someone as toxic simply because they work differently. Unfortunately, this has become a common trend in our society. Consider the works of Hayao Miyazaki as an example. Great art doesn't always come from incorporating every suggestion. It's important to have faith in the creative process. If someone doesn't believe in it, they always have the choice to step away, as their stakes may not be as significant as they perceive them to be.
Such an incredible deep dive on a super complicated situation, really appreciate all the hard work to find the truth, while also avoiding painting false equivalences and not holding back on critiquing the responses (or lack thereof) in the interviews. Bravo!
The more I think about this doco the more I'm angered by the false equivalence of Kurvitz being (supposedly, according to the people he is suing and their current employees) difficult to work with versus the criminal acts of fraud committed by Kompus and Linnamae. I applaud your work in gathering the information together but in terms of presenting a balanced perspective I believe you absolutely dropped the ball. Everything thrown at Kurvitz is either based on hearsay or entirely subjective evaluations of his character. Meanwhile, as Kurvitz rightfully points out, Linnamae doesn't even bother to show up so you throw up your hands and give up on putting any kind of real accountability on him. Of course the energy "changed" in the room when you got in Kurvitz and Rostov's face about their longtime friends' accusations. This is personal to them, it's just another grift for Kompus and Linnamae. Do better.
The thing that pisses me off the most are the fans that decided to send death threats to the staff of Za/Um. That the staff were terrified of even doing these interviews fearing the fan backlash.
No matter how you feel on the situation on who’s in the right or wrongs. It’s never a justified reason to send death threats, especially death threats saying they will kill a parent’s child.
Not only is it wrong to send death threats, it's just flat out misguided to aim your anger at the staff who are not at fault for anything. It's a dispute between creative directors and the company's lead and major shareholder, not the company's employees.
It's like threatening the janitor for what a company does in the building they're cleaning. The staff didn't have a say in this dispute.
It's so against the point of DE too. Not that you should need it to tell you that!
"Gamer culture" is the worst offshoot of the awful "fan culture". An obsession with the product leads to an absurd sense of entitlement and disrespect for others. I love that this channel is called "People Makes Games", that hits right to the core lesson so many "fans" fail to grasp.
It's so short-sighted to know only few details about situation and conclude that you have whole picture and thus know what's right. People will change opinion based on emotions and emotions change when new information comes out. Sending death threats is the ultimatum. You should never do this, but even if you do you do it because you are 100% believing that you know everything - which is never true with this kind of 'drama'. Even after this video noone should proclaim that it's clear what happend.
I feel like what this video is missing is an interview with a completely independent 3rd party CFO of a similarly sized company to know "how much of this weird money movement is actually weird?" Like I feel like Ilmar's case could really do with some analysis by someone who actually knows what things mean
Yeah, that would be interesting to know.
I've tangentially been knowledgeable of some corporate financial transactions that seemed odd, but we're completely above board, simply due to corporate structuring and timing on how the transactions needed to take place.
the biggest problem here is the distintion between illegal and shady. Is it shady? Oh god absolutely, neo liberal EU allows for this shit,
But is it illegal? That's the big question here. Moreover, what and how much illegal it is. The purchase might be legal but the payments through the gf/wife shareholder might be illegal, etc etc etc...
Unfortunately I don't know Latvia's law, or england's... I lost myself a bit understanding if this was being trialed in latvia, Estonia or England, or EU courts
@@Kishuy I think this is the big thing, yeah he could have nicked it from them but accounting wizardry is an artform and I’d wager these business types know it well. Shady most likely but not illegal
@@StanleyKubick1 I can but they aren't good references.
It's murky and lots of corruption.
South American markets and South east asia markets specific as well as India, some African Markets and for funzies, some states in the US.
But it isn't a 1:1 comparisson and I know to few details to make any sure acessments. I just know too little about the case unfortunately, hence why I raise the question that it might actually be legal.
For example, in most EU countries to prove corruption someone has to physically wire/give money to another person.
Say you bought them a gucci bag and then their wife sold a gucci bag? Nope, might be ilicit gains or some IRS tax violation, but it isn't corruption. You will notice, if you live in EU, that alot of your elective representatives get trips and football tickets etc for free and VIP treatment in them. Alot of their sponses also do quite nice deals with the government or with each other.
Why are interpersonal problems between the lead individuals and others in the team being used as a counterweight to the theft of the project from its creators ?
Are there any projects where there are no conflicts, where people dont say harsh things and complain about the lead not working as much as others do?
I think the angle of this video is very strange.
The appeal the video makes to "workers solidarity" is especially cynical, bacause all it means here is "you should not give importance to the theft of the project, because the lead team was mean/incompetent". Its a false dichotomy: either you are "with the workers" or against them and with the lead.
Kurvitz email at the end is correct. Nothing absurd about it.
There is no equivalency between Kurvitz and Kompus in terms of their "toxicity". Kurvitz being a bad manager doesnt mean he deserves to have his lifes work fraudulently taken from him. Should he be a boss again? Probably not. Should he have his IP back? Absolutely.
But was the IP ever solely in his hands, or should it be? Like really the only thing that would change is the size of the Ilmar's share. And that wouldn't get Robert the majority. Let him write his books or whatever, maybe a second chance with a separate studio under ZAUM or a basic writer position. But letting NetEase on it I am way less supportive of
"Fraudulently"? Did the case end already or are we just assuming there was fraud because Kompus sounds shady?
@@roumaaana basic writer position? Why? Elysium is his baby. The best situation, only of respect to the other workers at ZAUM, would be that both studios share the Elysium IP. Kurvitz should be allowed to do with what he created whatever he want
@@AgusSimoncelli Also how do you expect cohesive development of the world with such separation?
@@roumaaan why do you need a cohesive development? Let each one of them do their thing.
Do you expect cohesive development out of media that happens in the Forgotten Realms for example? Elysium is a setting, many unrelated stories can happen in it.
And even if both groups make a game that involves the same characters with the same story, so what? Let the best one be selected by the public as "canon"
"The mask has slipped from the face of capital. What remains at ZA/UM is a cold, careless company where managers wage war against their own creatives, where artistry is second to property, and where corporate strategy is formed by an arrogant disdain for their own audience."
I like how Kurvitz hit the nail on the nail on the head that this documentary was just looking for office drama to spin into a story, he said as much to the documentary team's face, and they got pissy enough about it to make this a paid puff piece for Zaum's leadership.
I genuinely hope the people behind this doc have it hanging over them for the rest of their careers that two separate people said this documentary made things so much worse internally, and that most of the Disco Elysium community now considers them fence-sitters who defended the IP being stolen because Kurvitz wouldn't play ball.
I can't even begin to fathom how tough this must have been to piece together. Truly amazing work.
What's up with the part about Hindpere as Lead Writer on the Final Cut? I feel like I missed something, everything about her is built around that, like "maybe she got fired because she didn't work?", but she says she was also responsible for VO? Why isn't this a bigger deal? The whole game had VO in the Final Cut, this is a huge part of it, but we're only hearing writers say she didn't write.
And that part about the deadline is really confusing too? Like obviously people are complaining about the people just above them, I'm sure they won't have anything bad to say about the dudes they never interacted with (or the wife of a dude they never interacted with).
[2024 update about that: really surprising how with the rest of the team being fired, we heard the same thing about new leads not getting any word from management and being unable to tell the rest of the team what to do. It's as if management had all the power and could create tensions between leads and workers. (PC Gamer, "A follow-up to the legendary Disco Elysium might have been ready to play within the next year")]
Anyways, like many, I don't doubt at all the fact that it was a difficult place to work at (and honestly I don't see how people could have seen ZA/UM as a place that would be cool to work at), but I also don't really think the last part about the mail is deserved. If all three of them were indeed not fired for toxicity, then I get why they wouldn't want to play the game and talk about that, because no matter how at fault they are, it's only paying into their opponents hands.
What were they supposed to say "yeah we fucked up, we're creatives, not managers"? Even if that's what they think, that would only give more ammo to the idea that they were rightfully fired.
Need this upvoted more. It's astute to point out that it's pointless to pass judgment on the ability of either side to self-criticize, at least until all or any upcoming court battles are well behind them
Also AGREED, there was a lot clearly going on with Helen that didn't get fully explained
Jim worked in VO
She was Robert GF
@@DiabloResourcesChannel This, nothing more to it
@@iateabagelonce - Especially when part of the reason for firing Robert (allegedly) was his patriarchal and inappropriate behaviour towards Helen (which Helen denies happening for what it's worth), but then they also fired HELEN at the same time?
The deadline thing is also pretty obvious. Sure the writer didn't get deadlines from Helen until last moment, apparently neither did Helen get any from the execs. So can hardly blame here there.
And yeah maybe she didn't write a word, but she did lead the VO effort, with no experience, for a massive game, during a pandemic. Were the other writers aware of that?
I think the fact that both Helen and Rostov were fired alongside Robert makes this just a lot more shady.
I do hope there's an update that's planned. Would like to hear more on what happened with recent developments.
Why?
I find crazy that in the west now we can use "work place toxicity" to excuse theft and fraud. I get it, the original team were no business men and were probably very hard to work with and under a lot of pressure but Ilmar is a very dodgy guy and I personally think it wouldn't be hard for him to cross that line into criminal. Also talking about toxicity, what about Helen's treatment from Ilmar, it goes both ways if they want to play this game. I went in open minded knowing nothing about this but my sympathies are now definitely on Robert and his teams side.
Interviewer: "yeah maybe the Ilmar guy is a criminal but.... (Alleged) tOxCiCiTy!"
More like you're using fraud as an excuse to defend workplace toxicity like every other aging conservative snowflake. Kurvitz's behaviour would be a reasonable cause to demote or fire him in any situation. The fucked up way zaum was taken over doesn't mean he should be reinstated into a position of authority within the company
The last few minutes of this video says alot more than I think he realizes. In the majority of the video, there's a tone of being an even handed journalist just trying to get the facts without putting his finger on the scale (which, by the way, is impossible) until the end where he suddenly becomes indignant ar Kurvitz's admittedly non-response to the follow up questions. Where was this actual "nah" after all the things Ilmar said and refused to substantiate, or the many questions he side stepped? They sometimes get a brief acknowledgement, but never a minutes long outraged monologue. Which is especially odd when, as others have pointed out, fraud and the hijacking of the life's work of many people and being a bit of a dick who's not suited to leadership, aren't equal crimes. Bias is unavoidable in journalism so I try to give leeway in that respect but man. That was a hell of a tone shift and a hell of a time for it.
personally (and I'm obviously just speculating) it's possible that it hit a more personal note for the interviewer because a bad/toxic boss is more relatable and more "tangible" than fraud and IP theft. If I'm being honest, reading that email response also enraged me, because it's a such a cop-out and a complete disregard of his employees' very serious grievances. it's just something that people are more likely to be able to empathize with.
@@maplebaconcakes5113 that would be fair if there wasn't an active lawsuit going on. I don't know the man and can't say how he feels, but given that it's *the* reason the corpos said he was fired, it would have been incredibly stupid to respond, especially after PMG showed their hand like that - watch Kompus' interview again, he did the same thing but more smoothly and businesslike and they either didn't notice or let it slide. Again I don't know him or how he feels but if I were in his position, I could be crying myself to sleep every night over it and still would have given a similar response.
bc everyone knows the financial side is sketchy and will likely be settled in court. The community of the game is not really seeing through the toxicity of Robert's response tho, which more or less confirms what has been said about him by centering the entire scandal as well as the output of the company around himself and the people in his close circle he is also manipulating.
I.e. If he is involved in any capacity with a new title, he must be a writer only since he is a loose cannon that you can't really have in contact with the rest of the team. Which obviously isn't going to work, especially since he feels entitled to control his work exclusively and run the company his way.
It is a publicly traded company, necessarily so under capitalism to fund development, so there will be capitalists involved, and the correspondence from Tonis confirms that the goal of these investors is growth (duh). Ultimately, that requires a smooth operation that is not possible with a toxic clique at the helm. This isn't inherently bad, but it's clear that Robert will need to self evaluate before he could be involved with DE2 again, and he has instead chosen to hide behind ideology and entirely ignore the primary victims of the debacle, being the employees that suffered under the management of both him and ZA/UM, further indicating that his ideology is dogmatic rather than practical considerations for the material conditions of the working class.
Huge amount of respect for this for the PMG folks. As someone who personally works in these close circumstances on both the "moneyholder" and the developer sides, so, so much of this rings as the exact things that are so hard to avoid: The former, developers trying to avoid bad businesspeople trying to pigeonhole them into terrible circumstances, and the latter, workers trying to avoid bad leadership and collaborative dysfunction.
I've had immense respect for the workers who have had to endure this unrelenting abuse towards them despite just wanting to contribute to a deeply meaningful work they appreciated, and in particular, I'd like to also give a shout-out to Danielle Partis who seemed to be the only person to give a voice to the workers in any coverage prior to this.
Keep it up, gang.
Anyone looking at this video now should watch some of the rebuttal videos that criticize the reporting work done here:
Jamrock Hobo's recent 'About the disco elysium investigation' video and stushi's 'A response to the disco elysium investigation' - the latter of which has some lengthy back-and-forth in the replies from PMG and stushi worth reading.
Much of what those videos cover dispels some of the questionable narratives and shortcomings of the reporting done here.
Thank you for recommendations :3
sophie from mars also has a great video about this entire situation
TLDR? this video by itself is 2:30:00 and tbh I'm kinda lost in all the nuance by now
no he sucks
@@Riley-uy5pe bootlicker
Its amazing how clear as day financial crime has taken place and no police investigation is being done.
They're too busy raiding people for posting pepe the frog on twitter.
I think that, to me the tragedy of all this is the loss of those moments that are talked about in the second view with wide eyes. Those tabletop campaigns that Elysium came from must have been much simpler times, when ZA/UM were friends instead of business associates. Its sad to me that the price of their incredible art might be the loss of the connections between them.
I think this, all of this makes for a great extension to the art of Elysium. It's a dehumanising thing to say, but this story would fit perfectly in Elysium - capitalism subsumes all. Even in how friends decay and end up in sad dispositions between eachother over time.
I was having the exact same thoughts. I enjoyed Disco a ton but generally stay away from gaming discussion boards (reddit…😂) so had no idea about all of this.
The background on where ZAUM came from really does make the enormous success/profit of Disco seem like both a blessing and a curse.
I wonder if it was lightning in a bottle. Can a sequel succeed without the charismatic yet totally destructive leader + core members of the founding group?
To me this looks like a group of people that all suffer from severe burnout blaiming their circumstances on each other. And a handful of money people taking advantage of them.
i cannot agree with this statement hard enough so i am commenting to let you know how much i agree here
Yeah the whole point of “excessively long vacations” feels like workers resenting the ones who got their rights instead of the bosses who forced them to crunch and take shorter breaks.
@@andrekanasiro728 The internal hierarchy certainly didn't help. Robert and Helene didn't take on the responsibility and weren't cut to be leaders, yet they ended up in that positions. Judging from the interviews they're complicit of holding on to power too and dishonest about (maybe even to themselves) how much they can realistically shoulder. Resentment is inevitable if your higher ups force you to take over their share of work unprompted and f*cked off to vacations that you also should be able to take, and then got their names credited in place of your and others' names.
I must say that if I understand correctly, the initial production for DE was supposed to be close to a year, and after release the final cut followed about a year later. A year for any complex game, much less a complex writing heavy CRPG sounds like absolute hell, and I'm more upset that the non-core creatives didn't also get a chance to rest from that crunch rather than that those three extended theirs so long.
@@andrekanasiro728 The feeling that I get from their interviews it's not that they resent the fact that they went on vacations, but that they did not do the work of a lead in the position those 3 were, then shoved a good chunk of their work responsabilities onto the workers themselvess, then went on vacations, and then extended them.
I feel that no matter how much vacation time you personally get, if your boss (who is a first degree asshole if we believe the workers) is incompetent in ther position as a leader, shoves half their work onto you and goes on a vacation, and then extends that vacation you would (rightfully) resent them. That's not how things operate in a group. If you need to stop for a week or so to relax a bit before continuing then sure, other workers can shoulder your responsabilities for a bit.
But 3 months? If you need to stop for that long pause the entire project. If the executives then say "no" then you have a case for something else but as the employees describe the situation it was basically "hey, could you take over me for a week so I can relax a bit?" and then the employees learned they fucked off for 3 months god knows where which I would be extremely pissed off at them if I was there.
There was no talk with the employees about the situation, no "hey, could we stop for a while to recover from burnout?", nothing. They just went away and left the employees holding the pieces and ressponsabilities of continuing the project without them.
So glad you did this deep dive. As a person with familiarity with securities and corporate law (in America only, not Estonia), I can't imagine a good explanation for the fake IP transaction/loan and it's extremely telling that Ilmar could only refer to informal talks and secret explanations.
watching him squirm in the interview and basically refusing to answer the simple question "why would the others be fine with such a loan?" is incredibly telling. that transaction had bad vibes all over it, as soon as i heard of it
Not only the longest extensive video on the matter, but the only one that I`ve seen where they actually go directly to the sources, the agents of the situation instead of quoting parts from articles of multiple media without even mentioning what it is the supposed source. All that and keeping the journalist opinion part of the article clearly separated and bunch together in one section. This is what journalism was supposed to be and so tremendously rare nowadays, bravo.
I really appreciate all the work you guys put into videos like these. There's plenty of great videogame journalism out there but I think perceptions can often be a little skewed in the gaming community. It's an interesting, artistic industry, like any other, and seeing such great, informative work being produced essentially for free online is lovely.
One thing this video neglects to mention is that there were many other developers fired alongside Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere. Martin Luiga was briefly mentioned, but he makes clear in his medium post that there were other developers fired at the same time as he and the creative leads were. They may not want to be named or talk to press, but to leave any mention of that out isn’t painting a full picture. Firing around 10 members of the team (which was originally only around 30 people) is a pretty significant change and calls into question Ilmar’s claims that the firing was mostly due to managerial issues from Kurvitz. If Kurvitz is the problem and there was no financial impropriety, why fire so much of the team?
Furthermore, Kender and Haavel were employed as producers on the project. Why are none of the managerial failures laid at their feet? They were the ones actively managing the business side, development timeline, milestones etc. Are they not to blame for many of the managerial failures and challenges in addition to the alleged financial impropriety? I get they weren’t interested in speaking with you, but it seems pretty relevant that they were both principle investors of the project who were also deeply involved in managing the studio, and very little of the video focuses on their conduct.
Luiga went out way before the big attention to the game. As an Estonian, heard some rumors of some conflicts with people inside. You know, at the very moment when the creative leads very much still were the only leads.
So much this. In this video Helen talks about how she was verbally berated by Haavel, didn’t have deadlines communicated to her by Kender, and was made to sign a new contract every 2 years so she wouldn’t be entitled to benefits. Any one of those three things is, in my view, far worse than anything Kurvitz was accused of (and that’s assuming every accusation against Kurvitz was completely accurate). But PMG didn’t comment on it, follow up on it, or even really draw attention to it in any way. It’s just put there before the conversation goes back to how much of a big meanie Robert was, and moralising about how he isn’t addressing the criticisms made against him. It’s honestly pretty disgusting the way that this doc seems to conveniently forget that Robert, Helen, and Alexander were themselves workers and their legitimate grievances against the company were given *far* less weight than those of the other workers which were very clearly motivated by other factors (namely, excusing financial crime)
@@starryscar22 oh absolutely, in light of new information that has come out in the last few days, with more developers leaving the studio and speaking out, it’s even more clear that People Make Games dropped the ball with this one. It’s a huge embarrassment that they put out this garbage video and they should be ashamed for doing what is essentially a hit piece against the fired creative leads on Disco Elysium.
Last I checked, old Marty's a bit too busy frothing away in a rubber room somewhere to contribute much.
Mind giving an update on this?
I will give you an update. Kompus got rid of anyone who had writing credits on original DE, including Tulik.
Well done, People Make Games, well done.
It's both disgraceful and dishonest journalism if there won't be a follow up video on this. You always, always follow up on the story you've picked up.
@@DawidUliczny-ro7eo are you saying that it's PMG's fault that Kompuys fired all of them? Because that's what it sounds.
@@Kivlov84 It was merely a well done for a quality, unbiased piece of gaming journalism.
But now that you mentioned it, there were reports that after documentary came out the working conditions in ZA/UM had gotten worse, so I wouldn't entirely rule it out.
@@DawidUliczny-ro7eowhy is the whistleblower responsable for any retaliatiory accions that the company may take? You sound like your angry you can not live in a fantasy and putting the blame on the guy that runied your inmersion
I beg of you, when talking about many different names in short succession, please keep names up on the screens, maybe even with their portraits. I know it doesn't make for fancy editing, but it would be so helpful for following along of who did or said what. Especially when names start with the same letter and are unfamiliar to me, I'm completely lost. Giving them some kind of jobtitle or relation to the topic of the video would also be great.
Yes this is helpful!!!!
Yeah I struggled with this while watching as well. I had read up on this situation before but not enough to remember their names.
They're all telling the truth. You can be a bully and be bullied yourself. Predators get eaten by bigger predators. I wish people would understand that being a victim doesn't make you a perfect and harmless person.
very true, everyone wants to pick a side, but its just not that simple
Sorry, but that's BS. We don't know how bad his actions and behaviour were. Toxic is a very flexible expression, what is toxic to one person might just be being a little harsh for another. And fe. being very critical and dismissive of someone's work doesn't necessarily mean you are a horrible monster of a boss, even less, when the criticism might just be correct.
it's not like there's a law saying you can't harshly criticize someone at work, because it might hurt their feelings. I'm not saying there's nothing to these allegations, but in which world does this justify what happened to him and the other two?
This was their project, their company, their creative IP, even if he was a horrible boss, then just making him take a backseat when it comes to running the company or dealing with other employees would have been enough. What happened here is that Kompass used shady, almost certainly illegal means to acquire a majority of the company, when the three others wanted to see paper work to understand what had happened, he fired them and then consequently began a slander campaign against them, especially Kurvitz.
@@dieyng maybe not in Estonia but in the US there absolutely are laws against a hostile work environment.
ok lets say it how it is: copyright never served the artist as long as he wasnt richer then his opponent. It is a shame and a scandal that one of the best universe created this century is being stolen from the original creators and we all can see the proof clearly weighing in for them. Nothing would have ever been created without those 3 the way it was. And the sequel will never come close to the original if the original minds that created this universe over years dont work on it and own it. Yall coping not fighting for the artist or freedom in general for that matter
@@un1c0rn52 picking a side is necessary if you are not strong enough to stay neutral
You will simply go insane if you don't pick a side in this situation
This game means so much to me making this whole ordeal doubly heartbreaking. Can’t even imagine how the creators are feeling.
This is what all gaming journalism should aspire to! Great explanation of a complicated situation; revealing interviews with all the key players; analysis and review that doesn't try to dodge the responsibility of stating the author's/publication's position on where the truth probably lies. Fantastic stuff.
Nice job both-sidesing this issue guys, I'm sure it'll age gracefully and won't make you look like mouthpieces for shareholders at ALL
Encyclopedia: It did not, in fact, age gracefully.
They didn't truly engage in both-sidesing. To me, they clearly favored the corpos. They put way too much blind faith and weight onto the "the courts will decide" defense (which really is a corporate defense) and ended up demonizing Kurvitz by pressing him harder on questions than they did Ilmar K. Kurvitz reacted defensively, but that's actually normal given that he's being actively gaslighted with these questions. The misogyny he was being accused of was still happening in ZA/UM after he was fired and they later found out it was mostly Tonis/Dennis H. who was the master manipulator.
I'm so thankful that you gave the employees the opportunity to speak and be heard. It's heartbreaking to hear the struggles of development on the original game and final cut, dealing with bad management and extra responsibilities pushed on them, and then after all that they have to endure death threats because of a dispute over an issue that doesn't involve any of them. I hope that however all of this works out, all these employees get to keep working on projects they care about and enjoy with better management.
Hindsight is 20/20, but reading back Kurvitz's final email - the one at 2:21:00 - it seems incredibly on point and prophetic. For PMG to say that the email is "outrageous" completely misses the mark.
Was Robert a terrible boss? Evidently. But the DE IP has clearly been stolen by criminals who are slick and wealthy enough to get away with it. You say that this "has to go through the courts", but it's clear that will never result in a satisfactory conclusion based on how thorough Kompus and Haavel are in covering their tracks.
The fact they have not allowed the company to produce a single title since DE, but have simply ramped up projects and then cancelled them, seems incredibly suspicious. Tuulik, a fan favourite who became known *due to this very video*, has been fired from a key (now-cancelled) project which he and fellow writer Klindžić were effectively joint leads on: the closest the studio will ever get to a DE2. There is no reason for this that anyone can discern. Haavel and Kompus simply decided this promising project should be cut. Why?
As this case fades further into the past, it's clear that Kurvitz's behavior (and your overly thorough focus on his character), while distracting and distressing at the time, were never the key issue. The key issue was always that an incredibly popular IP fell into the hands of shady businessmen, who are either milking it for all it's worth, or hugely mismanaging it.
You guys dropped the ball here, in a huge way.
Hear hear
Why shouldn't we discuss the other issues as well?
@@librariesarecool7461 There's "discussing", and there's "letting those issues cloud the discussion so much that they obscure the bigger picture". I believe pmg fell into the latter with this one.
To be clear, I don't condone abusive work practices. But the amount of harm za/um has had done to it since kurvitz's exit has only increased.
@@librariesarecool7461because the focus on condemning individuals instead of impersonal structures and corrupt systems is exactly what they want you to focus on to muddy the waters.
People Make Games, a channel called *People Make Games* is a centrist coward almost acting like a shill on a payroll saying “Erm both sides are bad but I’m going to finish the video by saying Kurvitz is an evil person that should be your take away from the video, nothing about his life’s work being stolen, nothing about the fact that this is the most Disco Elysium thing that could’ve happened to the game, no just reduce this a one on one, who do you think is the bigger meanie, Kurvitz or Kompos?”
Shame on him.
It's possible for someone to be an asshole and still have their life's work stolen, and for that to be unfair despite him being an asshole (if that is indeed the case).
Problem is people aren’t rational or dispassionate enough to separate the two.
if anything that Disco Elysium taught me, people are complicated. My heart feels the most for the team and the writers and workers, like Argo. I hope that in the end SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL can still happen here. DE is my favorite game and I'm thankful for the feelings and story it gave me. No matter what happens with its future I want to thank the writers, programmers and artists who bore the brunt of all this chaos and made something fantastic.
Honestly, the only person here who didn't present their case well was Ilmar. On Robert's end, he doesn't even necessarily deny he was toxic, which he clearly was, but he does importantly point out that his removal was clearly motivated by something shady and likely illegal on the money side.
Based on what's presented in this video (and maybe I'm missing something) it seems the other devs and writers had concerns and issues with him, but that his firing came long before any action by the ZA/UM team to push him and the others out. He's right; his bad behaviour (which he absolutely should be held accountable for) is a scapegoat for what looks to be a lot of illicit behaviour (like the funneling of money to a woman who has nothing to do with the company, for example).
The fact that IP theft (with no evidence) was the original reason with toxicity only coming up later is so shady. I think Robert's an egomaniac and a bit of an asshole, but in terms of his rights as a creator and IP holder he deserves some justice. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the other writers, devs, creatives still at ZA/UM.
yes; It seems like in a ideal world, he and Zaum employees would share the rights to the disco elysium world, and at most he'd remain a consultant, sharing his talent with the team without being in a leadership position when he can hurt people, and remains free to keep going on his own projects.
@@maximeteppe7627 lol no in his ideal world he's the CEO/studio head/creative director. There was like a whole section about him trying to politic his way back into being in charge.
It's just his idea, but he didn't make Disco Elysium.
He owns part of the studio & a larger part of DE2. Both of which would be worth a significantly larger sum of money if he wasn't a cunt, showed up to work, & didn't try to take the source code to go start another company. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's not true at all. Robert clearly tells a contradictory story than the one the workers tell, explicitly says the toxicity charges were not brought up when he worked there, and when confronted by that he refuses to reply. I don't see how that is presenting his case well at all
@@maximeteppe7627 Which would be how they would have organized it, if the loudest voices in their group were actual communists, rather than assholes putting on leftism as a fashion choice. I'm of course talking about Robert.
If he actually cared about his ideological roots, he would allow the workers to own the company, and be part of leading it. But in stead, he was a tyrannical boss that fights tooth and nail to wrest control of some intangible property. Property a communist would want to not exist. A communist would not rent the IP to ZA/UM in the first place, much less sell it as he later did, but give it freely as open source to anyone.
It's telling that the interviewer apologizes for not being direct / aggressive enough while asking hard questions to Robert, while literally helping Ilmar to finish his responses (otherwise those will all come up straight from the gpt2 public comm for fraudsters 101).
Anyway, Covid did them in, it's much easier to vilify someone over a slack message thread of even a zoom call, and to miss the moment you became vilified.
Also, am I the only one who founds Haavel's slack message deliberately made to invoke disgust in Robert while looking completely adequate on the surface? I really doubt Robert is a person who would assign positive sentiment to the word "professionalism" in this context.
Here's my take as a neutral outsider:
Ilmar: Definitely did a hostile takeover. Fraudulently or not is up to the courts to decide.
Robert: Screwed by Ilmar & co. Feel bad for him on one side, but he does have Steve Jobs syndrome: Perfectionist visionary to a fault, creating a toxic work environment.
Rostov/Helen: I think they meant well and just got screwed by Ilmar & co with unreasonable expectations and deadlines out of nowhere, to make them seem like bad lazy bosses and have reason for termination because they were loyal to Robert.
Coworkers: Their frustrations are fully understandable and warranted. Knew little about the bigger picture, but have to deal with the consequences every day nonetheless.
and here's my take as an alcoholic:
i need more wine.
or a nice lager.
or a whiskey that burns through your oesophagus.
[electrochemistry: success]
You forgot to mention that Robert clearly tried to screw the company and potentially endanger the employment of people who worked there by stealing the company's IP. The most reasonable guy in all of this is Argo, he is the only person who truly understands that Robert is an extremely toxic and manipulative narcissist with a huge ego who got the closest people to him fired and lost access to his IP, because of it.
@@NoName-ym5zjThe issue seems a bit short on evidence but if they were to prove the source code theft... Yeah that is the nail on the coffin for Robert
I like how this video just blatantly sides with capital and tries to justify it on the grounds that Robert was a jerk. Even if you believe that the current system of "might makes right" in economics is good, what the people with the most power (capital) did in this situation is not excusable even on the system's terms, as the system at least has a legal framework and these people violated it. The last 2/3 of the video seem very keen to individualize all these actions as if to make them seem banal.
Remember, the bourgeoisie pushes an ideology of atomized individualism outwards towards the subjugated classes, but inwards, it tends to firmly act as a class, with much more solidarity and co-operation than they would ever allow us to have.
"The guy accused of major financial crimes promised me he didn't do it!"
Honestly i cant believe how, naive, they were. Never talked to a lawyer before that, never secured ip rights, as we know in almost every company you dont own the IP you created(example god of war and their creator david jaffe). Is something normal and you need legal advice to avoid that.
And trusting a guy that did FINANCIAL CRIMES previously like. I dont want to sound mean, but we can tell that these ppl are socialist/comunist
MY OPINION AS A LABOUR ORGANISER after watching this is: absolutely the writers and workers deserve a share, and also, seems reasonable that they were mistreated. To give the (sliver) of credence to the capitalist side - sure, a story was spun which does not cover the entirety of the complexity of the issue. However, I think it's clear their employer started snowing them about the situation by making out it's all a big co-incidence and to use the legitimate grievances of the workers as a retconned rationale for firing people they had been salivating over cutting out of the profits for months. Plays out like in strikes - you can't convince one side, so you convince the other side of your own warped narrative, and then meanwhile use the whole conflict to your advantage.
They suits played workers and artists against each other.
My thoughts exactly, thanks for putting it in words better than I could.
Glad I wasn't the only one with this perspective. I mean, so much of this video seems to revolve around the fact that Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov took personal time off after 5 years of working long hours and crunch time,and the perspective here seems to be, "we resent them for it" rather than "we should all be taking time off and it's unfair of management to be pushing and changing headlines on the fly". CLassical divide and conquer tactics.
Kurvitz handling of his role as a leader and stealing company by Kompus are 2 very different things. But it's deliberately merged by Kompus to divert discusion, and he's taking advantage of employees to do it. To be in a position of Kampus you need to be very good at manipulating people.
No one is perfect and during years of hard you can find mistakes in everyone curriculum vitae, including those emplyees who made those claims. Thier allegations are fair and propably mostly true. It's just not possible to not make any mistakes, overlooks and bad decisions having that role. BUT that's not what this scandal is about. It's about Kompus and his partners steal company from it's creators. I 100% agree with Kurvitz why he don't want to talk about it. Not becouse he doesn't care about other people, but becouse those are not topics that should be discussed right now. Going into details like if he read someones work or not is just following Kompus plan, to make this even more complicated and confusing and shift focus of attenion from him and his actions to Kurvitz.
Making this film was very hard work and you do your best, but you lost focus. This should be about ZA/UM scandal and how Kompus become majority shareholder, very hard video do make. You could also make very easy to make video about if Kurvitz was perfect boss and leader (maybe even friend) with very obvoius answer - no, becouse no one is.
2:24:28 The editorializing over his response is unwarranted and arguably unprofessional. If you're not going to editorialize in the same way about the financial aspects of this, which are to be clear the actual story, then you definitely shouldn't be focusing so hard on this statement . Statement .
And that's the real key, this statement and the things that he said in the interview did not dismiss the experiences of those people, but it did dismiss them in the context of the financial crimes that have been committed allegedly. Because they are not important in the context of what he is focused on, which is the financial crime.
kurvitz' misconduct is an issue and I feel terrible for the workers caught between everything, but I hope people realize that it doesn't take away from the severity/issue of IP theft
The reason kurvitz and co were fired isn't the real issue, the issue is how Ilmar achieved the power to fire them in the first place
After watching this full video, I wouldn't believe a single word coming out of Dennis Havel.
He writes an email to Robert saying he's treating Helen in a "patriarchal" manner but then goes on to scream at Helen for being terrible at her job and that she never should have held that role.
Dennis sounds like a caracature of every executive I've ever worked with.
chill, he just hasnt unlocked the feminism thought cabinet yet /s
the false equivalence between Kurvitz being supposedly difficult to work with versus actual financial fraud is nowhere near properly addressed in this
I'm a UK law student, and being so moved by Disco Elysium while writing my dissertation, this video perfectly marries my two obsessions.
Robert can be a shitty and toxic boss, Rostov and Helen can avoid accusations against them, AND they can all be fucked over by the majority share holders/have their IP stolen. These situations don't tend to be black and white - what I will say is that I believe the writers and stand with the workers. If something criminal has taken place, the accusations of bullying, clique culture and such should not be used to try to disguise this - although they should be taken seriously and given the space they require. This was excellent journalism that NEEDS to be supported.
Imagine profiteering off the broken legal system and then having the balls to type online like anyone respects your opinion at all
@@opiliones4202 I'm not profiting off of any system - I'm a student in the UK (broke as hell) and volunteer for a pro-bono legal advice service at my uni, which offers free legal services to the community. I agree that the system is broken and campaign for reform through my work.
@@opiliones4202 lmao what a sanctimonious comment
@@epileptictrees5213 Lad saw the words "law student" and instantaniously got mad
It's possible that there's both fishy stuff being done by the shareholders AND that Kurvitz was legitimately fired for being toxic and impossible to work with.
What really set off my bullshit alarm is when he said he wasn't aware of his stake in Newlysium, and when he started spouting politics instead of answering some very specific questions (same for Hindpere).
it might be a fairly niche subject, so i'm not sure how well this vid will do viewerwise. but please remember that this kind of stuff is incredibly important and I think tackling such issues in a fair and balanced way even if it might not be the best financial decision is extremely admirable and should absolutely be rewarded more than it is.
Unless you have some solution to how we do business on the whole, videos like this will only be rare blips rather than common place.
@@DifferentPerson557 I don't, which is why i said should.
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As ZA/UM gets more and more gutted, this is gonna become the poster child of shitty "both sides" amateur journalism.
This isn't really true "both sides" journalism. It clearly favors the corpos. PMG held Kurvitz to a higher standard for responding (and of course he didn't react well because he's actively being gaslighted), while letting Ilmar K. off the hook with answers such as "we'll see what happens during the trial."
@@pnpgutterfold Whast else can be said, without facing a lawsuit legally? Declaring that they are guilty of financial crimes without passing through the courts first could get him under very hot water. And from what the other workers said, Kurvitz was 100% an abusive artist.
@@Hypogean7 You are correct in that declaring guilt prior to trial opens them up to a lawsuit and there is also no denying that Kurvitz was abusive. Regardless, an update on the situation is warranted because there is now so much more information that has come to light that responsible journalism would require a revisit. This is what people meant by this video not aging well.
Journalism isn't a one-and-done thing, there needs to be updates once the story changes. The toxicity at ZA/UM has not subsided despite Kurvitz' departure and that should clue you in on the complexity of the situation and how the narrative against Kurvitz was utilized for inappropriate gains. Jamrock Hobo has done a couple of updates since this video that merits a watch.
This is a great video, really fantastic journalism you've done here. I will say, the hurt and betrayel the other employees feel for Robert is palpable. I've been exploited both by big corporations, and small mom&pop business, and I have to say - being exploited by someone you see everyday is so much worse. It hurts so bad. You trust them and you get shanked. With corporations you expect that, but not from your 'friend'.
I can also completely understand Robert, Rotsev and Helen feeling the same way towards Illmar.
This video is an ugly stain on an otherwise unimpeachable body of work from PMG. It was pretty poor when it released, but in the 8 months since then it has become even more egregious. This really ought to be taken down, out of respect for the former workers at ZA/UM.
Taking it down is not the solution, but abridging or amending it is. It's still providing us with more information than any other source, but PMG needs to live up to the fact that their journalistic standards slipped here (by placing too much emphasis on things the courts can't resolve, they dropped the ball on pressuring both sides and mostly went after Kurvitz).
Feel you're doing a bit of a BBC-esque attempt at being unbiased. I think Robert is right that these interpersonal issues are being used cynically by the company in order to obfuscate their far more serious criminal activities. Robert and Helen both admit there is room to talk about those things, but this forum is not it. I agree, let's not get distracted or make some kind of false equivalency.
I'm not saying that Robert was a good leader (in fact, most creatives are AWFUL leaders), but this video doesn't sound right. Why has more of the video been focused on Robert's character as a leader? I've had a listen to this whole thing, and it sounds like the three lead creatives wanted a significant break after they finished work on Disco Elysium. And why not? Heck, it would make sense to let the rest of the employees have a break too (and that's usually what happens in the industry!). But it sounds more like the big three (Kaur, Haavel and Ilmar) encouraged the leads to take their breaks, and then while those breaks were happening, they decided to push forward without them. In fact, it sounds like Robert and Rostov were then demoted when they got back. Robert continued to try to retain creative influence, and Rostov's work suffered because of it (to which he apologises during the interview, it seemed he wasn't aware of how big a toll it took). Meanwhile Helen was Lead writer in name only (as she wasn't there when writing began, which actually suggests to me they wanted any excuse to get rid of her), but because of that job title, she was still allowed in meetings that cut Robert out (baiting Robert into interfering with the meeting, because obviously, things were getting worse for him, and they weren't going to make it easy to resolve). When Robert and Rostov tried to get back their positions as leads, the owners said no, and promptly made things even more difficult for everyone, eventually sacking all three leads for 'not doing their jobs' when that was exactly what they were trying to do.
The accusation of IP theft is kept really small in this video, even though it's the huge thing that Ilmar is accusing Robert of. Given that this accusation is a he-said-she-said (there's no evidence this happened, there's only two people claiming it did), I don't think it has a leg to stand on. Also the fact that the companies accused (that Robert was supposedly going to sell to) are not consistent is an interesting point. Given Robert has made it quite clear he has no intention on selling his IP to anyone (assuming he gets it back), it's interesting that Ilmar is quite insistent that Robert wanted to sell it to someone else. Why would he be that desperate to get it back to sell it on if he also wants to make a sequel in a new studio? Doesn't make total sense.
Kaur's involvement in the whole debacle needs further digging into. Obviously he's been instructed to lay low. Haavel's involvement at all is really alarming, he is literally a fugitive. Why Ilmar is protecting him and giving him a job (and paying him THROUGH HIS WIFE), I have no idea. By the way, just because the payments that were coming from the company have stopped, that doesn't mean he isn't still doing this. He could be paying himself a higher salary and paying the wife through his own income - since, as is claimed, Haavel worked directly for him before he was involved with ZAUM. Also Ilmar is quite clearly a fraud, and that other businessman, Mag-whateverhisnameis, is involved. Why else would he offer the guy a stake in a future endeavour after Kaur has made him out to be the bad guy?
The way I see it, we need to focus on the actual crimes committed, because the alleged IP theft Robert is being accused of is just not going to stick. Then Robert and friends can make up for being shitty to each other over this mess. Whether Disco Elysium 2 happens after that... who knows.
Silence commie
I agree, i thought Roberts response to the toxic work environment accusation was pretty much perfect.
The issue isn't why Ilmar decided to fire Robert and co, it's how the hell Ilmar managed to get into a position to fire them in the first place.
Agreed. The video unfortunately totally misses the mark when it comes to journalistic reporting. There is a clear bias (in favor of the capitalists) and an unfair one at that.
This is totally a capitalism sucks situation. Those financiers jumping in to snatch up the profits, and bilking the creatives.
I stand with the workers, but those workers are also afraid of saying anything negative about ZAUM lest they be fired like Kurvitz was.
I think he was perfectly logical to not wade into addressing the personal grievances in his apology because what, it’s just going to be more fodder for a media circus.
I don’t think Kurvitz is faultless, but I highly doubt anything he did was nearly as illegal as the fishy dealings of those millionaires. They are gonna cut and run whenever they suck this pig dry, they always do.
Have ye heard the news? Ooh boy, those are not disco
Jamrock Hobo agrees with you.
The more time pass, the more it seems that this interview missed the mark entirely on the important stuff that should have been investigated. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, but since in the end the intervew only served to screw over the creatives that were forced out, or as a way to force out those that were left like Tuulik, while also giving too much trust to the head with money allegations against them... PMG really dropped the ball here.
wait what do you mean, was this video used in court?
Okay, I think people blasting PMG this much is a bit too far. Yes, there was too much of a focus on Kurvitz being an asshole, but everything else covered is fair and just. We find out the shareholder situation is dogshit, and there's lies being spread everywhere. The documentary nails on the head however, the fact that throughout this entire situation, the ones being hurt the most, are the workers.
DE fans need to relax on the blind defense of Kurvitz. Yes, he is a genius. Yes he is is being fucked over extremely harshly and unfairly by market and greedy capitalist bullshit. But as far as multiple accounts go, Kurvitz was also doing shady stuff behind the scenes AND was horrid to staff. These ARE valid points to look at when looking at the situation. Although, I do think PMG should've focused more on Kompus and the left over ZAUM shareholders and their clear lies and skipping around the subject.
Incredible work, Chris and Annie! I once again feel hopeful for the future. Thank you everyone!
Thank you all for pouring your hearts and souls into Disco Elysium, it changed my life. And thank you for having the balls to do this interview, the same to all of your co-workers. Know that whatever part of yourselves you put into this, helped myself and many others in ways I can't really articulate.
Thank you for all the work you do! You guys were who inspired me to become a game dev and writer. Will be forever grateful ❤
I wish you the best.
You seemed like a very honest and kind person. I loved your work on Elysium and I hope you get to show that talent in many more ways into the future!
thank you for all your incredible work and your bravery & candour in the interview!
There is an overarching issue here that is taking away from a clear lack of responsibility for the workers at the heart of this project by higher ups on both the creative and business side of things.
A fantastic piece of journalism on a difficult to decipher case
This investigation should be updated. It seemed to miss the mark in the first place giving way too much equal time to the executives that took the studio, but after current events it makes it's ideas on the whole situation out of date.
what's the update on the situation?
I know I can google, but is it true that the current studio holders are coasting off exploitation, essentially?
and if I wanna play Disco Elysium now, I shouldn't officially purchase it just yet?
ehh, just play it. Ive no idea what effect it really has to not purchase it. Experiencing a great art like disco, you'de probably get more value by playing versus protesting it, or finding a safe way to irate it. I wouldn't be too paranoid.@@VinTJ
@@Hazparinrip, it's more that I don't want the money to fall into hands that don't deserve it, especially if the original staff all left at this point. but fair enough
u still didnt say what the update is? that za/um is failing as a company? I think anyone could have predicted that with the ways in which public opinion shifted
I mean clearly I don’t trust the guy buying up the stocks of the company. Even if he had good intentions in being sole owner, and he wanted to create a healthy work culture, he should have realized he needed the creatives help to make Disco 2. Plus, if he knew the other parties had issues, his purchasing decisions makes no sense as he stated it.
He's given us no reason to trust him. When you're the CEO of a multimillion dollar company your response to allegations like this should amount to more than "trust me bro".
I think he probably did take advantage of Roberts naivety around business, and gave himself as much as possible
Maybe they didn't really plan on making Disco 2.
Since the remaining creatives were able to do Final Cut without much help, it looks like they can just do that again and expand on the world and IP already owned by the company.
@@robertjohnpecayo8642 I don't know, the last update to the game included some new dialogues and let's just say they aren't really great
"he should have realized he needed the creatives help to make Disco 2." From all accounts, he did realize this, and tried to get them to work on it.
kinda sad how this is the most popular video on this subject
So, a year later and I'm still hoping for, if not expecting, a retraction and apology of this video. While I understand this video took a great deal of effort, it is simply the case that as an investigation of facts, this video is simply woefully inadequate. Worse, the framing of the video, putting the personal allegations against Robert & Co against the financial malfeasance of Kampus & Co as if they were equivalent is ridiculous. I hope that at some point we get a follow-up that attempts to improve on this embarrassing episode.
To me it would have been useful if, in the recap of the interviews, the same drawn pictures of the people involved were shown. It's a very complicated story with many complex characters. Showing a constant who's who would help me keep up with all these people.
Bloody hell Chris, asking the pointed questions in these interviews in such a naturalistic and non-confrontational manner is so damn impressive
He is working hard thought those nerves you can tell.
I know right?? I was absolutely blown away at the interviewing skills shown off in the video! Very diplomatic and effective, 10/10
Yeah he was great pressing those questions on behaviour and expecting something else than a shift in tone. After that he failed to lead the conversation in a way that would sprout more meaningful insights instead only clumsily forcing a submissive response. No, he isn't a good interviewer, mediocre at best
@@someones_daughter_ I noticed that immediately
the biggest failing of this video are his interviews. he is passive, apologetic, and unconfident. it’s very telling that his skill is in prepared writing/reporting, not in live interviewing.
having rewatched it, calling it a "potential" conspiracy is laughable, 2 people in a meeting room is a conspiracy.
So funny that this dude is on twitter RTing people saying this video is fine and absolutely refusing to acknowledge he might have any responsibility for what went down over there. Issue a retraction, or at the very least acknowledge you did not treat the writers fairly.
I really thought this story wasn’t going to be covered anymore and people would just forget about it, like any other controversy in the games industry. Thanks for putting so much work into reporting on this and giving us just a bit more clarity on the ZA/UM situation.
I think it’s remained in public consciousness because it’s an interesting story. It feels like it could be the underlying motive for the central murder of DE2.
"We asked [Argo Tuulik] how the studio culture changed at ZA/UM after the departure of most of the original writing team and the airing of the People Make Games documentary looking into the legal battle that ensued afterward." It's like transitioning from the Soviet Union into the fascist Russian Federation," Tuulik said. "Wearing the dead cultural movement like a skin costume, roleplaying communism, lying for dollars and yen. PMG doc changed lots of things in the studio. Personal dynamics. None for the better.""
-GLH article, 'Last Disco Elysium Writer Laid Off by ZA/UM Speaks Out.'
"The hate PMG is getting for their ZA/UM piece is undeserved. Chris followed the truth -- all of it, not just the convenient bits -- and gave a voice to the voiceless in the fire. Gave us a chance, and me the strength to stand against the incompetence and injustice in the studio."
-Argo Tuulik, February 17th 2024, Twitter
@@gab_gallardthe communards really don't like that part. Goes against their inframaterialist view
@@redactado266 this nasally Shapiro-ist bit doesn't really work when you look like an even more syphilitic Kevin Smith
@@fluffy9071 you can't seem to get that jew out of your head. Does he makes your heart beat faster when he is around? ♥️
@@redactado266 Mentioned him once, and I "can't get him out of my head"? Seems like a typical homoerotic, homophobic fascist projection
Your dedication is incredible. Please keep doing what you do.
jamrock hobo made a video as an important reaction and context to this. As a lot of other comments say, this video starts good but really misses the point with how it is painting the situation.
I'm just gonna copy and paste a comment from the Disco Elysium reddit that says it better than I ever could
"I didn't think I'd write a whole essay on this, but alas, this game saved me from alcoholism so I'm beholden to feel passionately about this topic to the point that I want to spill my guts after seeing this.
After about a year of tuning into what little news we could receive from this, this video definitely gave us more than we needed to know about the issues, but I definitely felt like it was worth putting out because of the fact that completely uninvolved people have received threats from the community that are completely unwarranted. But for anyone who might
read my comment, I feel it's worth noting that whatever issues arise between employees and Robert and the founding members of ZA/UM, have absolutely no bearing on the actual legal disputes between Kurvitz and Rostov having their creative effort taken away from them.
TLDR; I don't feel like it was right to make 1/3 of the video about employee grievances against the creators of Disco Elysium, when the central focus is the legal dispute regarding the creators having their IP taken from them by an executive who, through questionable means, became majority shareholder and ousted them.
While I agree that it sucks that there was apparently a bad working environment due to the "ZA/UM inner circle", that's not what this dispute is about and this is not going to be the avenue by which that issue is resolved. This can be perceived as ultimately attempting to disenfranchise the creators who are trying to retrieve their intellectual property after being wrongfully ousted from the company.
By playing on elements of worker solidarity, workplace toxicity, and saying that all workers have contributed to the IP, it stokes division in the public opinion of the people who were actually wronged so that the capitalist who attempted to steal the profits of their creative labor can carry on knowing that it's bad PR for a little while, but if the creators are painted in a bad light in the meantime it can divert attention of their hostile takeover of the company and allow them to continue doing whatever they want with the IP with no repercussions if the law chooses to side with them in the end.
/end tldr
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.
You can see that this whole weaponization of people's personal qualms with dealing with Robert and company in how they collaborate, is approved by Ilmar Kompus in the beginning, when he gives free reign to the employees to speak to the PMG crew. He signs off on this, because he knows that even people like Argo have no personal gain in supporting Robert, and that even if you take a fair position, it only solidifies this narrative being built against Robert and Rostov to sway the public opinion so that ZA/UM's next game won't immediately get panned by the community to show solidarity to them.
(Suggestion: "It's easier to get people to stop supporting a cause, if they feel like the cause is headed up by bad people.")
Basically it boils down to being in a rock and a hard place, which is synonymous with having idealizations of worker solidarity in a capitalist world anyways. You can either support the people who came up with this fantastic setting, or you can support the workers, who have no choice but to stick with their jobs and pay the bills, regardless of how they feel because worker solidarity is about taking care of the workers. Argo had a reasonable stance in the video by saying that his friends should be able to have their world they made and do what they want with it, but that shouldn't lead to people losing their jobs. Unfortunately this dispute has escalated beyond that outcome.
Robert is also in a hard place because all he can say in a way that stays true to his ideals, is that he chooses not to participate in the accusations of toxicity in the workplace not because
he doesn't want to deal with it, but because he identifies it as being weaponized against him to pull public opinion away from him and keep the company profitable when the next project is released. I'm sure if he is the communist he claims to be, and that his writing reflects, he'll open a dialogue about his behavior to the other employees who felt wronged by them. Clear the air with no expectation that any of them support him in his legal dispute, but rather to set aside any bad blood that might've coagulated during development. Not for any tangible
benefit, but because mutual respect is also a tenet of worker solidarity and communal ideological thinking.
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. (Rhetoric:"People love gossip and drama sire.")
Ultimately this serves to disenfranchise the actual issue, and in truth, I feel as though it is
less than morally correct to air these sorts of grievances in relation to the legal dispute to the public forum for debate, as these are interpersonal disputes that can only be resolved by the people who are involved, not by the larger internet community as a whole who quite simply, weren't there. It also benefits only one party in this, which is Ilmar Kompus himself, who I am sure most of us agree based on his motivations and interview, is definitely in the wrong no matter who you support. In a way, he has inextricably tied his fight with the workers so that if he goes down, they all do, and there's no guarantee that Kurvitz can or will extend employment to them if the dispute is resolved in his favor.
I feel as though this paints a "both sides-ism" that we're expected to adopt into our understanding on the issue, which is that the executives/investors are bad because they are predatory businessmen exploiting the success of the game for their own benefit and attempting to cut the creators out to solidify their position at the head of a now award winning indie studio that could see success in the future, vs. the creator is bad because he was verbally abusive to employees, did not work on the game after the release, is problematic as a person, and attempted to steal his IP back in very unclear methods and start his own company with the same IP (which I can't see that ever working without even greater legal disputes arising)
But 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." - simiman
While you view the legal dispute as the central focus, perhaps PMG simply don't see it that way, or at least as strictly as you. Both the legal dispute over the IP and the workplace toxicity are aspects of the controversy (or at least are two related controversies), and they reported on them. At the very least, Ilmar claimed Robert was fired for this reason, so PMG needed to investigate the veracity of this claim. I think there's a good chance Ilmar is using this to his advantage to cover his situation, but it's not PMGs fault that there seems to be truth to the allegations of toxicity, even if it's not why they were fired.
I would argue that the toxicity situation is more related than just a distraction though. Ilmar is clearly good at business. I'm sure it would have been more financially sensible for him to keep Robert on board if he wasn't causing trouble. Robert's vision and writing skills were undeniably a valuable asset. The executives probably realized that their business was not sustainable if Robert was to continue harming the company internally by trying to lead, and since Robert had no intention on giving up his direct leadership (even by leading indirectly, mediated by the replacement lead writer), they decided to remove him. Did they steal Robert's life work by swindling him with shady corporate deals? Of course, and I think just about everyone who watched this is on the same page. It's obviously wrong, but I also think Robert's toxicity as a leader is an important part of the story.
Also, I think part of PMGs motivation was explicitly to tell the story of the other employees who are being unfairly harassed.
Don't really agree with you tut tutting Robert Kurvitz for not addressing the individual PERSONAL grievances of the others interviewed. The scope of their troubles would ideally be ameliorated through a one on one discussion between friends or mediated by peers in the collective or discussed in an HR meeting. His issue is that the owner of a stupid mall likely stole away the thing he and his friend's had created collectively over two decades. If not technically criminal (as the law is nearly universally on the side of those with the deeper pockets), it is brutally unethical what Ilmar and his shadow partners have done. And, as interviewed, Argo Tuulik essentially says that it would be most fair and equitable if they (current and former Zaum writers) were both allowed to develop the IP further, in separate projects, in a shared universe. Why no hand wringing at Illmar for not offering his opinion of those statements? Because for Kuvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere that could never happen, they would not be allowed, it's already being parroted as "stealing IP".