The sad situation regarding the breakup of the collective that created Disco Elysee, ZA/UM, took yet another twist, with writer Robert Kurvitz sue remaining ZA/UM company.
Disco Elysee is one of the smartest, the most cerebrally fascinating Modern day RPG. Released in 2019, the non-combat game blew us away and won numerous awards, and has since been developed with dj2 Entertainment for a possible Amazon Prime TV show. All this from the extraordinarily humble beginnings of an Estonian collective. Sadly, however, it appears to have now broken down, with recriminations flying and little clarity about what really happened.
At the beginning of October, it was announced by one of the group’s founders, Martin Luiga, that “the ZA/UM cultural association” was in the process of “dissolving.” This was in response to an unknown internal conflict which, according to Luiga, caused the departure of three key members of the group at the end of last year, in a way which he described as “involuntary”. Tech News Area Today reports that the game’s lead designer, Robert Kurvitz (one of three who was fired from the studio), is suing the ZA/UM company, though again details are scarce.
There is a lot of confusion, especially about what ZA/UM really is. The answer is, unnecessarily, two things. The first was an informal artistic collective from Estonia, formed about ten years ago, and responsible for all kinds of projects around literature and cultural criticism. The second is a game studio, stemming from the first, which some claim was taken over by its British investors, and which Luiga hinted that his colleagues had been made redundant. He also said that “it no longer represents the ethos on which it was founded”.
Read more: Disco Elysee Studio accused of ousting creators, Dev says it’s ‘bad news’ for sequel
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To offer a little more flavor, I remember a conversation with the original group of Estonian creators (before Disco Elysee released for the first time), that their debut was unlike any other. I was told how ZA/UM was, at one point, operating out of an abandoned building in Estonia, where they hung sleeping bags over glassless windows for protection from the freezing winter. So when they talk about a change in ethos, you can see that they can have a very particular perspective.
ZA/UM, meanwhile, responded earlier this month saying that the continued development of Disco Elysee “was and still is a team effort,” before adding that they had no further comment.
Our Australian brothers and sisters dugand found out that Kurvitz was a board member of another Estonian company called Telomere OÜ, and it is this society that pursues the remnants of ZA/UM. A listing on the Estonian Justice Ministry’s website says Telomer is seeking to “obtain information and review documents”, with a November 28 court date. Beyond that, and presumably until that date, further details are not available. However, one might assume that the creator of the Elysium the world might want to give him back ownership of his creation, especially since Kurvitz’s Telomer is listed as a video game publisher and a sequel was supposedly already in the works.
We have reached out to those involved on both sides and will update if we hear more. Meanwhile, we spoke to ZA/UM founder Martin Luiga to get his perspective.
Luiga, it should be noted, ceased to participate directly in the creation of Disco Elysee in 2016, but for a two-month stint in 2021. He was, however, the publisher of Kurvitz’s novel, set in the same world, which preceded the game’s release, and was indeed the person who officially announced the disbanding ZA/UM as an arts collective earlier this month. I asked Luiga why he chose to disband rather than disassociate, given that ZA/UM existed long before a game was made.
“Less confusion if you don’t’JwoCoperates, answered Luiga. “And that provided a good framework to announce that the three had been kicked out of the company, which I think should be public information.” I asked if they knew he was going to do this, and he said he had told them in advance that the organization was disbanded and that their employment status was already public, but not widely known . “All three are overly cautious with information in my opinion. They themselves also agreed that it was good that this information was released now.
Luiga told me that “the collective had become dysfunctional”, but that’s not necessarily the end. “A collective is a tool. It can be dissolved and it can also be reconstituted if need be, like a group.
I asked if the ZA/UM founder knew more details about the upcoming lawsuit, and he explained that he didn’t, and that he had also deliberately tried not to know. But when I asked him if he thought it would be to regain control of the Elysium PI, he said, “What else could it be?
Finally, I offer a hypothetical scenario to the writer, who lives in Estonia and says he is currently “wwriting stuff and making remixes of primitive witch houses. Suppose that if a certain video game company called, perhaps, Telomer regained control of the rights to the Elysium world, would there be anyone who could join? “I could,” he replied. “You see, for a writer, it’s important to have a lot of readers. That makes games a pretty good format for them.
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