ZA/UM cancels Disco Elysium expansion, and plans on laying off a quarter of their staff
ZA/UM cancels Disco Elysium expansion, and plans on laying off a quarter of their staff
One source blamed mismanagement for the current situation, claiming that management was “always acting like there was an enemy, be it the old Disco team, the press, or even people working there” and consequently failed to value its existing talent, allegedly preferring to hire fresh blood from outside rather than promoting employees from within the company.
Who saw that coming???
It's probably a miracle that the original game released at all, but still.
There was nothing to loot and pillage before the game came out. Only after the original team established a revenue stream that the profiteers could harvest did this buyout/dissolution make sense.
I hope Kurvitz is on to greener pastures. The guy is clearly a smart cool dude and he's got a real creative genius worth continuing to share.
She didn't get me with her bullshit on my second play, I marched right up to her stupid boat and immediately begged for change, got nothing and left.
She's probably my favorite character in the game, which is pretty funny all things considered
THE HAM SANDWICH PEOPLE ONCE AGAIN PROVE THEMSELVES INCAPABLE OF ADVANCED THOUGHT AND EFFICIENT PLANNING, SQUANDERING THEIR PATHETIC LIVES WITH THE AL-GUL AND POTATOMan I fucking hate Estonia
They're in England now
Man I fucking hate England
Gross thats even worse. Fucking england
Far too on the nose that capitalists ended up owning and destroying this series.
The whole history of ZA/UM, the original company, not this zombie husk, was that it was a group of friends coming up with their own ideas for a fictional universe. It really shows in DE that it was essentially a labor of love done by a small group, and it's completely different from any other modern game. This wasn't enough for the vampires who can't appreciate anything that isn't made from the ground up to be a money making machine, so they just had to take it over. "Wow, a new popular IP, how about a TV show on Amazon?"
Capitalists are the dumbest dullards on this godforsaken planet
oh no, capitalists trying to shamelessly capitalize on the ideological product of their natural adversaries, yet failing to consider that words meant as weapons might be unwieldy or downright dangerous to handle for the target of their attack?
hm. well then
They should just pivot and turn the sequel into a freemium tycoon game where you get to build epic factories and become very rich
The Game.
Most prescient video game.
Was it already known that the Disco Elysium sequel had been canned back in 2022?
Aside from that, I dont know what the fuck they are up to if they have a third Disco Elysium "IP" related project in the works now, after cancelling an actual sequel plus an expansion, whats left, a card game?
lmao wasnt counting on it coming out after the hostile takeover shitshow.
I was, why would capitalists let the IP go to waste when they could be milking it dry?
You would think this is the simplest thing in the world. A game makes a bunch of money? Throw more investment at the people who made it until it reaches the "police academy threshold", then drop it. No need for all this corporate takeover nonsense where you burn the creators, that just jacks up your risk for no reason.
If I had to guess, Kurvitz and Co. were legit hard to work with, they are a bunch of moody communists artists after all, and the corporate guys didn't like how... bohemian they were being about game dev and wanted to run the shop more like UbiSoft or something. They were banking on the remaining writers being able to carry the project but it sounds like they weren't treating them too well either and also the game needs that depressed Estonian punk rock flavor to be anywhere near as good as the orginial so now they're just trying to sell the copper piping in the walls to pay off their debt and fuck off.
Damn, probably should have interacted with them a little or something. I feel like it would have been a pretty easy read o_O
I hope kurvitz and co are a bit more savvy about the money people now
I didn't realize they were working on an expansion. Probably for the best, considering the new owners.
Really hoping Kurvitz is working on something. Preferably at least a "spiritual sequel". Does anyone know if there were any updates on him being able to get the rights back?
Really hoping for Kurvitz is working on something.
Apparently him and Rostov have started a new company called Red Info or something in England, but they haven't put out anything yet.
Also wanna highlight this part of the quote right after.
They also said “I don’t think women were treated the same and that their work wasn’t as valued.”
Big fucking shock, great job of that shitass documentary to let the remaining writers specifically try and smear Helen Hindpere as incompetent and lazy, while not questioning them in the slightest about the claims from Helen as well as producer Yuan Zhang-Taal(only two women in the documentary btw) who say that Kaur Kender and Tonis Haavel both verbally abused Helen as well as also ran a campaign of attempting to undermine her credibility towards her coworkers.
there was a documentary?
Yeah some YouTubers called People Make Games interviewed a bunch of people and then made what they called "a fair and balanced piece". It was dog shit. They have ceo-worship-brainworms so what ever the money guy said was treated as fact while Kurvitz and all who supported him were heavily scrutinized
It is prime tragicomedy in a sense that communist game devs from a post-Soviet state got cheated by literally the first convicted white-collar criminal in post-Soviet Estonia.
Of all the money men to go with they picked the guy who did a speed run on fraud after the fall.
I've always thought this about the team.
As principled communists, they should have known never to trust a porky. Especially a turbo grifter porky.
I'm curious about whether or not they would have retconned Sacred and Terrrible Air. In the church dance party scene La Revacholiere implies Harry can possibly prevent Revachol getting nuked in the world war Innocence Ambrosius kicks off somehow - oddly noncommittal considering how much of Disco seems intended to contextualize Sacred.
All of this is bullshit but I don't want a disco Elysium expansion. It's fine as it is. I don't want a sequel or prequel or anything else in that universe. I know there is other stuff in thar universe in novel.form.or whatever but it's a really powerful singular experience that works best at least for me that way. I don't want more Disco Elysium, it did what it artistically set out to do and hit way harder than anyone could predict. I like it too much to want more.
Agreed. Every aspect of the game works in perfect synergy. The amnesia setup, the personality based skill system, the internal dialogue based dialogue. It’s heavily implied early on by Kim that this is Harry’s way of interfacing with the world, not the way it is for everyone. Others use journals and nightly cigarettes.
It would be too coincidental and convenient to start off a new protagonist with the same gameplay since it is so diegetically linked to the plot. And the game is about the beauty and heartbreak of dreaming and yearning for a better future. We can’t go back to Harry because then it necessarily implies success or failure. Either one undermines the point which is that you have to try no matter what you think will come of it. You can’t give up.
Furthermore, many of the cosmic mysteries can’t really have satisfying explanations of further examined and work best as metaphors.
We need the talent behind the game to make new things. Embrace their sensibilities but not the specifics of their success… maybe they can do that without weird finance money and maybe Robert can learn to work with his team better if they’re back to struggling again.
Im just rambling here and not proofreading… not sure if I’m making sense
That was very eloquent and you totally nailed it. It's a finished piece
I really can't agree with that, it's just so clearly setting up a sequel that I'd be really disappointed if we never get a proper one.
Well well well, who would have thunk it
I thought itd at least last long enough to make a new worse thing
Yeah like a cop procedural for example
Remember the hackjob "investigative piece" People Make Games made about the ZA/UM dispute, where they heavily relied on the money mens narrative about Kurvitz being bad a business? Do you think those fucking dogs ever sit down and re-evaluate their bullshit?
That implies that their business isn't selling bullshit.
The historic opportunity for a sequel has passed. It will not come back any more. However hard I try, whatever I do.
I suspect it was tanked on purpose. Controversial I know.
Fucking tankies
The devs mentioned how they were inspired by True Detective. Perhaps the executives became too enveloped by the capitalist destruction of Disco Elysium that they can’t help but project it onto their own business
you can almost smell the psychosphere!Truly
Unironically the sequel of Disco Elysium will be all the art and artists that are inspired by it. Everyone who plays Disco Elysium and says "I should make X" and then does it, will be the sequel to the game.