Report details allegations of toxic behaviour, IP theft at Disco Elysium developer
The fate of Disco Elysium 2 is currently up in the air, the boss of its development studio has stated, as part of a fresh report delving behind the scenes of the troubled company.
ZA/UM boss Ilmar Kompus made the statement in an interview with People Make Games, in which he was questioned on his buyout of shares in the company and whether or not Kompus illegally used company money to do so. The interview forms part of a longer documentary on the recent events surrounding Disco Elysium.
«The status of this sequel is something that has been jeopardised by this PR campaign as such, and the conflict as such,» Kompus said, referring to the publicity ZA/UM has faced from former employees in the past couple of years. Although the lawsuit filed by former executive producer Kaur Kender was dropped, the company is still in the midst of another legal battle against writer Robert Kurvitz, who claims he was, along with Aleksander Rostov and Helen Hindpere, fired «under false premises».
The trio were fired in late 2021, though their departures were only made public just under a year later. Kurvitz claimed he and Rostov had been fired when they had begun to question whether Kompus achieved his share buyout by using fraud, while the studio accused Kurvitz and Saander Taal, a former minority shareholder in ZA/UM, of «belittling women and co-workers», creating a «toxic environment», and «intending to steal IP». Hindepere was fired shortly after. In their interviews, the trio stated they were being isolated from the development team by management, with Hindpere recalling she was not told about deadlines for the script during development for The Final Cut.
Kompus detailed the allegation of IP theft to People Make Games, as he claimed
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