„Fans Have the Right to Know” - Disco Elysium Co-Creator Talks ZA/UM Losing With the System

Money makes the world go round – whether we like it or not, Liza Minelli was not spreading false narratives. Naturally, the video game industry is no exception. In fact, it's one of the hottest corners of capitalism, consumerism, and corporatism on our entire sore planet. Since the dawn of days, however, the powers reigning the reality are involuntarily generating anti-systemic forces – fugacious, but aggressive paroxysm initiate revolts, herald uprisings, and deliver elaborate criticism of all the system’s irregularities, including pathologies of the economic, political, or social sort (ask the Parisians about barricades). The artistic collective ZA/UM was an inconspicuous, at least initially, force in gaming. They promised a lot and delivered on these promises, but what remains today are but two things – beautiful memories and a company that sacked its creative progenitors.

On October 1, 2022, the co-founder of the former ZA/UM Cultural Association and editor of Disco Elysium, Martin Luiga, announced the dissolution of said association. Reasons? Loss of values and ethos by ZA/UM studio somewhere along the way. He also recalled that other originators of the Elysium universe (and the cRPG created inside it) – namely, Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere and Alexander Rostov – were pushed out of the studio in late 2021.

The whole incident raised many questions, and not enough answers. Because in addition to the eternal question "Why?" and a few brief conclusions about another victory of business over ideas, fans of Disco Elysium really began to wonder what to make of the future of the series. What caused the rupture? What does it even mean: “ZA/UM has been dissolved,” if the company is still present on the market? Like I said – questions and not enough answers. However, part of the grim truth is already clear. First, I connected a few dots. Second, I contacted Martin Luiga, who kind of caused this whole media storm by announcing the end of ZA/UM. And although he also doesn't have the entire context, the full picture, he is sufficiently acquainted with the atmosphere inside the studio and isn’t hiding his regrets nor biting his tongue.

Martin Luiga

Co-founder of the ZA/UM artistic association, the man, who recently announced its dissolution. He worked in ZA/UM studios until 2021. The editor of Disco Elysium, he also participated in conceptualizing the Elysium universe for years.

Twitter: @martinluiga

In the beginning there was Elysium

For people who are interested in this whole affair, but don't know what Disco Elysium and the studio behind it are, a brief explanation. It's an isometric role-playing game inspired by such timeless classics as Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate, but without a combat system. In the game, we develop a character, explore the environment, hold long conversations with NPCs, while all the actions are determined by dice rolls and checks, just like in pen-and-paper RPGs. The whole thing became famous for its surreal style and extremely complex and coherent story and setting, deeply engaged in political and existential problems. The Estonian ZA/UM created the title, a fledgling gamedev studio, which previously functioned semi-formally as said art collective. You're welcome to find out more details yourself here; I have already done some praising in another article.

Luiga also told me about the beginnings of the project:

The inception of the world of Elysium happened in the mind of Robert Kurvitz. Besides, he was the project lead for Disco Elysium, which was supposed to be just a video-game introduction to the imagination of the artist and the world he formed together with friends and peers. The phrase "Disco" in the title means "I'm learning," while "Elysium" is treated by Kurvitz as "an embarassing fantasy construct; a messianic, transatlantic, large-enough-to-blot-out-our-entire-reality vessel of conquest."

This note from Kurvitz shows that Disco Elysium was supposed to be just the beginning...

That's a hefty number of complicated words, innit? But that's because they come from Kurvitz (you can find them in the artbook included in the collector's edition of the game) – a left-wing idealist and artist, co-founder of the collective who entered gaming with a bang – heck, he spent at least the last 20 years building his own, original universe, which he shared with us.

He formed a harmonious trio with Hindpere (the main screenwriter of the game) and Alexander Rostov (art designer for DE). Together, they shaped the Elysium world and brainstormed their favorite cultural inspirations, the beloved cRPGs. It was their real, long-term passion-project – some will say it was naive, others will applaud in admiration.

However, this project had to be implemented. And so, the search for funding began. Initially, they were offered a great deal of aid by Kaur Kender – an Estonian writer and entrepreneur with an equally avant-garde approach to art, who took responsibility for all kinds of negotiations and contacts. Luiga also mentions their first source of income:

From the very beginning, compromises had to be made – to secure financial support from people not necessarily interested in artistic prowess of the project, but rather in planting firm roots in a potentially future-proof and profitable place. Luiga recognizes that this project wouldn't have happened without the investors, but at the same time he seems to appreciate that they also contributed to building internal tensions in the advanced phase of the studio's operations.

So, from the very beginning of ZA/UM's activity as a company that grew out of a collective, one could just state that "business is business," and argue that the creators became dependent on external funding too quickly. This seems to expose a bit of a market paradox, right? The avant-garde idealists had to sign a pact with the devil in order to allow themselves the creative freedom to match their ambitions. They got it, and in the end created a game of which they were proud. But sometimes the harbinger of destruction is... success. And Disco Elysium turned out to be exactly that – undeniably and unexpectedly.

Criticism of capital strengthens capital

Industry awards and astonishing success at The Game Awards are one thing; infecting the world with the Elysium universe is another matter. After the game's release, on October 15, 2019, the developers received a really clear message from people – they not only wanted more; they were sure that more was indeed coming. The game sold well, and ZA/UM quickly spread wings, becoming an inter-industry machine for generating the sweet, old money. Disco Elysium has quickly gained sizable fandom and became a brand in strictly business sense of the word.

The game received an exuberant collector's edition as well as the expanded Final Cut version (which Luiga described as a redundant superstructure of the finished product); an online store with merch like clothes, mugs and ties, and a fairly exclusive fashion atelier that has opened in London, offering beautiful jumpsuits for a few hundred pounds each.

The company has also decentralized its HQ, operating in parallel in Brighton, London, and Porto, while constantly increasing the number of employees. The vacancy that puzzled players the most is a specialist in monetization and sales – this immediately generated, so far unjustified, discussions about micropayments, NFT and other bad ideas for the franchise.

However far these fears are from realizing, one should remember where they come from. Disco Elysium as a game carries a fairly clear anti-capitalist message, and bourgeois inclinations are often ridiculed by the screenwriters. In addition, the whole multi-vector, corporate activity of ZA/UM looks kind of corrupt once you realize that the people who constitute its soul have, let's face it, been kicked out from the office. The point being: it wasn't a voluntary departure, nor one by common accord. Luiga emphasizes:

The pain of the sacked developers is understandable. They have lost their opus magnum. Legally, there was no theft involved, but the reality is that the people responsible for conceptualizing, creating, and showing the Elysium universe to the world were denied custody of its future development. This is bitter, unfair event, showing the corruption of a system that the leaders of ZA/UM had to enter if they wanted to practice their art. And if you want to find an unseen benefit, there's one reassuring fact – Kurvitz and the company predicted such a course of events. There are countless quotes in Disco Elysium that we could quote here because they say that anti-systemic actions are eventually inhibited by the system, reentering, and reinforcing it.

"Capital has the ability to subsume all critique into itself. Even those who would *critique* capital, end up *reinforcing* it instead."Disco Elysium, ZA/UM

Are there any leads concerning reasons for the dismissal of Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov? If you look at the current policy of the company, the left-wing tone of the game, remember about the investors patiently waiting for financial success, and at the same time understand the merciless laws that ensure the functioning of the modern video game industry, then the conclusion, although inferred, can be only one. The trio simply became inconvenient for ZA/UM at one point. They embodied communist and Marxist attitudes, and more than once Kurvitz was criticized by the online community for keeping a bust of Lenin (a violent and ruthless leader) on his desk for traditionalistic reasons.

However, they weren't radicals, but people of strong political outlooks, using existing archetypes to play with convention, experiment with narrative, ponder on existentialism, define human beings as politically engaged in and of themselves, partially unconsciously.

Medium.com, Martin Luiga

Helen Hindpere spoke loudly about her and Rostov's roots in an interview in Wassup Conversations. They grew up in the "post-Soviet, eclectic Tallinn" – it had to influence their views, lives, and creativity. The brutalist nature of Estonian architecture has become crucial to the way Revachol looks.

In turn, in an interview conducted by the Serbian editor, Nastasya Pisarev, Luiga admitted that the ZA/UM collective was in and of itself a kind of excess and an act of rebellion, because it was formed in a country where being an artist isn't all that easy – it seemingly is more a form of "civil activism" rather than tangible building of culture. It's no accident that the protagonist of Disco Elysium is an alcoholic with undefined political views; Estonia, like many of the countries of the former eastern bloc, is a country plagued by alcoholism, and defined by the transformative thaw that came after the Soviet Union collapsed.

It turns out that the Elysium universe is not only about a vision and ideas, but also a number of outlooks, as well as local history and culture. This may not be an overly explosive mix, but it is problematic for people who want to earn money without fear of lawsuits and the stability of industry arrangements and media cooperation. Calculation. Pragmatism. Rejection of sentimentality. These are the components of capitalism.

Collective effort

Many people will have a hard time getting over the sacking of these developers. However, ZA/UM was entitled to make such a decision. Everyone is entitled to make dumb moves, it seems. The decision to fire the people creating the backbone of your organization is always a risky one. After all, this happened at the end of 2021! Several months have passed since and I do not exactly know what the company's managers have been counting on, nor hoping for. In fact, they were indirectly forced to issue an official statement on social media only after the unforeseen move from Luiga, whose announcement of the dissolution of the ZA/UM Cultural Association was, let's agree, a symbolic, rather than formal move. Because this collective is a set of ideas that has long since turned into a company.

However, the very fact that he immediately mentioned the fate of Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov led to a turbulent sequence of events:

1. The whole affair fed the curiosity of journalists and players; speculations, questions and emotions ensued.
2. Alexander Rostov confirmed on his social media that he no longer worked with Kurvitz and Hindpere at ZA/UM. Hindpere shared this message, thereby also admitting it.
3. It took two days for ZA/UM to publish an official statement, a lousy one at that, where it highlighted the COLLECTIVE EFFORT put into work on the next project, while suggesting that the lack of said individuals will not affect the quality of the upcoming game. At the same time, the studio refrained from any discussions, blocking the comments on Twitter. Luiga admitted that this statement "wasn't very good."

Press release of ZA/UM.ZA/UM

Needless to say, ZA/UM's lack of transparency and the shock caused by the news about the collective's breakup quickly turned criticism of the fans into hate. The case got out of hand, appeals to boycott the company's further work started to appear, and even the developers currently employed in the company have spoken, informing that they've received death threats. Developers from other studios are further fueling this crisis, engaging in fratricidal exchange of views. Chaos is born. Luiga responded to the reaction of Internet users:

ZA/UM will probably wait this storm out and then get back to business as usual, hence my claim that Luiga's dissolution of the art collective has merely a symbolic dimension. The co-founder of the now defunct association somewhat calmed the fans by suggesting that the studio's next project might satisfy them anyway. Remember – there are still artists and developers working there. However, if someone is counting on another Disco Elysium, this is where the problems start:

However, we can still expect some amazing stuff in the future coming from Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov, who did not say the last word in gamedev:

The multilayered nature of this whole... let's call it "scandal" may be overwhelming and evoke extreme emotions, but I am writing about this whole affair because for me, it's an example symptomatic of the gaming industry. If this may serve as testament to anything, it would be the fact that artistic vision doesn't permanently belong to its author, especially once it starts wearing a suit. Even if the idea incubated in the artist's head for years, it can still be legally appropriated by a market that doesn't know pity, respect nor morality. Not in the age of money.

And you can be showing this system your middle finger all your life, expose it in brilliant ways. You might even feel safe, think you've figured this world out, stood up to it. But it will eventually come back around and devour you – like the ancient reptilian brain. However, in order not to get carried away by nihilistic accents, Luiga makes one disclaimer: organizations are temporarily, ideas last forever. It's never too late to internalize them.

We also tried to contact Robert Kurvitz, Helen Hindpere and Alexander Rostov. To no avail.

ZA/UM does not provide any answers now either, apart from the press release available on the web.

If you want to support Martin Luiga financially, you will find his work and services under this link.