The two main creators of Disco Elysium released a statement accusing the new owners of developer Studio ZA/UM of taking over the company through fraud, saying they are now exploring legal options. These new owners, for their part, have said that these creators were fired last year for refusing to fulfill their job responsibilities and for creating a toxic work environment at the troubled RPG game studio.
In October, Studio ZA/UM co-founder Martin Luiga posted a cryptic statement on Medium titled Dissolution of the ZA/UM Cultural Association. In it, Luiga announced that he was no longer with the company, as were co-founder and game director Robert Kurwitz, writer Helen Hindpere, or art director Alexander Rostov. They left ZA/UM at the end of 2021, he wrote, and said "their departure from the company was forced."
The ZA/UM Cultural Association was a separate organization from the ZA/UM studio, a game developer. The Cultural Association was a loose collective of artists and writers whose ideas formed the basis of Disco Elysium and its world.
Under his name at the end of the note, Luiga indicated that he wrote it in a psychiatric hospital in Tallinn, Estonia, and elsewhere he said that conditions in the studio prior to his departure at the end of 2021 “driven him to the point of drunkenness.” ".
In a new Medium post published on November 9, Rostov writes that the majority owner of Studio ZA/UM, Estonian investor Margus Linnamäe, bought out his stake in the company in 2021 to a minority shareholder, another Estonian company Tütreke OÜ. . Its owners Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel later fired Kurvits, Hindpere and Rostov.
The reasons for the dismissal are a moot point. IN statement provided by GamesIndustry.biz, the studio alleges that the creators effectively stopped performing their day-to-day work duties and treated other employees disrespectfully, including subjecting them to verbal abuse and gender discrimination. The new owners also spoke to Estonian news agency Eesti Ekspress referring to the toxic work environment in the studio.
However, in their new Medium post, Kurvitz and Rostov claim that shortly after Kompus and Haavel took control of the company, they excluded the original creators from day-to-day operations and fired them weeks after they requested company documents and financial information. .
Kurvitz and Rostov go on to say that they believe the buyback itself is fraudulent and that they are discussing their legal options in both Estonia and the UK.
“Until now, we have refrained from making statements. It was completely voluntary, for the benefit of the people still working at ZA/UM, and for our own mental health. But given the severity of our suspicions and the severity of the evidence we have, we think it's time for people to find out what happened at the company."
In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, ZA/UM's new owners say the fired creators, in addition to creating toxic jobs for other employees, also attempted to "illegally sell ZA/UM's intellectual property to other gaming companies in order to undermine the rest of the team."
"ZA/UM cannot and will not tolerate egregious infractions, even from individuals who, along with the wider team, have contributed to a game that we are exceptionally proud of and that continues to capture the imagination around the world," the studio said in a statement. .
“The rumor that our decision to terminate the contracts of these individuals was made for the sake of financial gain is completely unfounded and is in no way true,” the new owners continue. “It was a decision that had to be made for the well-being of the team. In addition, ZA/UM denies any allegations of financial misuse or fraud that are made against us. The vast majority of profits from Disco Elysium have been invested back into the studio to fund our next projects currently in development."
