New Disco Elysium Documentary Reveals Heartbreaking Accusations of Toxicity And Collusion

gameranx.com:

We had previously reported on the issues surrounding Disco Elysium, now the subject of litigation between the original heads in development and the studio. Now, a new YouTube documentary from People Make Games corroborates some of those earlier details, and paints a muddy picture of the entire situation.

For the sake of clarity, we will stick to the bigger picture painted by People Make Games here, and highlight the main points. We also want to make clear, regardless of what allegations are made by who and directed to who, none of these allegations are a free pass to contact, harass, bully, or send threats to any of the people in this story.

The side of the story that we had heard about first involves ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus. Ilmar was not a founder at ZA/UM, but does take a substantial share later. Around 2021 to 2022, Ilmar becomes majority shareholder for ZA/UM, after purchasing shares from Margus Linnamae, one of the wealthiest men in Estonia, and Disco Elysium’s original big money backer.

Disco Elysium’s famous creative heads, Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov allege that this transaction happened without their knowledge. Another Disco Elysium investor, Kaur Kender, also alleged that Ilmar pulled a fraudulent stunt. Ilmar bought the rights to a Disco Elysium sequel prototype from ZA/UM, codenamed Pioneer One, for £ 1.  Said prototype consisted of three papers with drawings and diagrams. He then sold it back to ZA/UM for € 4.8 million. Ilmar was interviewed for this documentary and denied both allegations.

Outside of the bounds of this documentary, it had been reported that ZA/UM had ended the legal battles surrounding it. ZA/UM settled with Kender, who has sold his shares to the company, and Kurvitz’ and Rostov’s