Layoffs at ZA/UM, unannounced game cancelled

[CyberWhale]

Cunta deleted his xitter account. Is he gone?

Edit: I see he was promoted to Operations Director back in August of last year. Would be a shame if that promotion came with an axing a mere half a year later.

Can you give me a recap of what actually happened here? Our local commie joined the studio and helped the new management with getting rid of the original team, only to end up fired due to layoffs?
Or am I missing the mark here (and misremembering what lead to all of this)...

 

[gurugeorge]

The whole fiasco since the game was released seems to have been a prolonged exercise in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

 

[Jeskis]

Yeah, hijacking the IP from its creators didn’t look like a smart move given the product was still pretty niche albeit successful, but business can be pretty stupid when it comes to forecasting profits. DE is a labor of love (and substances abuse), it cannot be replicated in the artificial environment.

 

[Roguey]

Damn, it's truly over. If I were Kurvitz, i'd pack my bags, move to the US, and try to establish a whole new studio to share by creative vision with, IP debacle be damned. Kompus can go to hell. The fact that they were working on so many different things at once is rather telling.

Also, what's with all the mass layoffs in seemingly every industry around the world? Is the ruling class abandoning all pretense and just trying to reinstate chattel slavery, to prop up the GDP for just a little while longer? Is that where we're at?!

As far as I know, Kurvitz is doing just fine with his Chinese-funded studio.

Cunta deleted his xitter account. Is he gone?

Edit: I see he was promoted to Operations Director back in August of last year. Would be a shame if that promotion came with an axing a mere half a year later.

Can you give me a recap of what actually happened here? Our local commie joined the studio and helped the new management with getting rid of the original team, only to end up fired due to layoffs?
Or am I missing the mark here (and misremembering what lead to all of this)...

Junta joined ZA/UM in July 2021 as a programmer. Kurvitz tried to get him to illegally give him the source code on his way out. Junta went to bat for ZA/UM by saying Kurvitz deserved to be fired. I don't actually know for certain if he got hit by the layoffs.

 

[std::namespace]

Junta joined ZA/UM in July 2021 as a programmer.

lolwat, but he isnt, roffles!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Why did they oust the original dude exactly?

 

[Beastro]

Who would've thought that a studio responsible for Disco Communism, would be dysfunctional, what a shock would turn into the very thing that Disco Communism was against.

 

[Roguey]

Junta joined ZA/UM in July 2021 as a programmer.

lolwat, but he isnt, roffles!

Before ZA/UM he worked at the same company as a programmer for 20 years.

Why did they oust the original dude exactly?

After Disco was released he did no actual work for two years on account of being an alcoholic burn-out. Eventually they got tired of paying him to do nothing.

 

[Joggerino]

Don't believe Roguey's lies. Just watch this video and make your own conclusions

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Honestly, whenever I look at the game industry, I see so much wasted potential due to the simple reason that people don't specialize in what they are good at.

Kurvitz and Disco Disco writers should've been hired IMMEDIATELY by that shitfest company who is trying to make Bloodlines 2 for example. Or Obsidian. Or Larian. Or all those other companies that can't write to save their life.

Just like the guys who made the Hellish Quart combat engine or the Mountain Blade husbando and wifo should've been hired to make combat systems in RPGs.

Instead you got plots about bear sex and combat that mechanically resembles bear sex in modern RPGs. Fucking waste.

 

[std::namespace]

Junta joined ZA/UM in July 2021 as a programmer.

... he is some kind of fucking clown

this shit is absolutely hilarious
https://medium.com/avaintec-blogchain/agility-within-software-teams-f0fede096220


ahahahahh
those are fucking example templates, untouched, with some dude adding 1 """fix""" to create the illusion of activity

now these 2 are actually devs

GRADE 1 CLOWN

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone is watching your layoffs:

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Don't believe Roguey's lies. Just watch this video and make your own conclusions

I like when homme soviétique pretend to be progressive westernoid.

 

[Roguey]

Don't believe Roguey's lies. Just watch this video and make your own conclusions

? "He did no work for two years" is from that video. They even say he lied about reviewing someone's work.

 

[Harthwain]

Why did they oust the original dude exactly?

In short? One of the guys owning some portion of the company shares (Ilmar Kompus) tried to steal & sell Disco Elysium's IP to make quick buck (we're talking about 4.8 millions). Naturally Rostov (the graphics guy) and Kurvitz were against that, so they had to go by any means necessary. Ultimately the court blocked the sale.

 

[Crayll]

Not going well over there if these rumours are true.

https://videogames.si.com/news/disco-elysium-dev-zaum-layoffs

Around 24 employees are at risk of redundancy at Disco Elysium maker ZA/UM, according to GLHF sources close to the matter. This is roughly a quarter of the company’s current total workforce.

You're telling me it took 100 people to make a bad visual novel?

 

[Tyranicon]

Not going well over there if these rumours are true.

https://videogames.si.com/news/disco-elysium-dev-zaum-layoffs

Around 24 employees are at risk of redundancy at Disco Elysium maker ZA/UM, according to GLHF sources close to the matter. This is roughly a quarter of the company’s current total workforce.

You're telling me it took 100 people to make a bad visual novel?

Damn it, stop making the Avowed people look good.

 

[toro]

Fuck those losers.

They still have 2 projects in development.

This leaves two projects, codenamed C4 and M0 internally, in active development, with the latter believed to be related to the Disco Elysium IP. Just last week, ZA/UM opened job applications for a new design director with experience in creating narratively driven role-playing games.

 

[taxalot]

True communism has never been tried at a game dev studio.

 

[Roguey]

You're telling me it took 100 people to make a bad visual novel?

Disco Elysium was made by a core team of roughly two dozen. After its incredible success, ZA/UM did that stupid thing that game companies love to do and rapidly expanded.

It's an indictment of nu-ZA/UM that these employees couldn't even make a stand-alone expansion pack sequel in a few years.

 

[KVVRR]

You're telling me it took 100 people to make a bad visual novel?

Disco Elysium was made by a core team of roughly two dozen. After its incredible success, ZA/UM did that stupid thing that game companies love to do and rapidly expanded.

It's an indictment of nu-ZA/UM that these employees couldn't even make a stand-alone expansion pack sequel in a few years.

Which is weird considering how little time they took to make the Final Cut with how big of a task it was. I suppose things just outright imploded inside the company after the whole Kurvitz fiasco, I already had low expectations but was willing to try (not buy unless it matched disco's quality, mind you) their new projects considering all the writing on the final cut was apparently not made by Kurvitz & co. Now? I'd be surprised if ZA/UM releases anything at all.

I guess all that remains is wait and see what new project Kurvitz releases with his new chinese cashflow... but I doubt anything's coming from there for at least half a decade. Maybe he can bullshit some way to make it into the same setting with just a few words changed around, seeing as he still owns the right to the novel where Elysium was first officially published as a setting. It's not like he can't just go back in the timeline with some pale shenanigans.

 

[normie]

True communism has never been tried at a game dev studio.

what is Troika

 

[flushfire]

They were working on 5 projects at the same time, is that common in game studios of that size? Seems excessive, Spiders is smaller but still have 70 people according to wikipedia and they seem to be working on just 1 or 2.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Cunta deleted his xitter account. Is he gone?

Edit: I see he was promoted to Operations Director back in August of last year. Would be a shame if that promotion came with an axing a mere half a year later.

Can you give me a recap of what actually happened here? Our local commie joined the studio and helped the new management with getting rid of the original team, only to end up fired due to layoffs?
Or am I missing the mark here (and misremembering what lead to all of this)...

Junta joined ZA/UM in July 2021 as a programmer. Kurvitz tried to get him to illegally give him the source code on his way out. Junta went to bat for ZA/UM by saying Kurvitz deserved to be fired. I don't actually know for certain if he got hit by the layoffs.

All this drama and backstabbing is peak communism.

 

[std::namespace]

After its incredible success, ZA/UM did that stupid thing that game companies love to do and rapidly expanded.

thats not stupid, its smart
the shiteating gaymers who pay for this garbage in general are the stupid ones