Baldur's Gate 3 Karlach actor hits out at RPG devs trying to recruit them for their Disco Elysium successors: "Miss me with that casting call"
Baldur's Gate 3 Karlach actor hits out at RPG devs trying to recruit them for their Disco Elysium successors: "Miss me with that casting call"
"If your 'spiritual successor' to Disco Elysium does not involve creator Robert Kurvitz, then save both of us some time"
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Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov (the lead artist) formed their own company Red Info in 2023. I will only recognise a game as Disco Elysium's successor if it comes from them.
This might be a controversial opinion, but please hear me out: this guy is absolutely overhyped.
I saw the entire ZA/UM situation from the outside without having ever played Disco Elysium before, so I don't have any stake or bias in what happened. In my personal opinion there are 2 important notes: Yes, Kurvitz is responsible for the creation of one of the best games of all time. He also is a massive asshole who abuses his workers. Both of these can be true and don't contradict each other.
I can really recommend the Documentation by People Make Games about it, I think they made great and very neutral reporting on it, getting everybody's side of the story. But one think becomes increasingly clear throughout the video: the original creator is a huge egomaniac.
I came to dislike him the more I heard him talk. He spouts how he comes from this underground punk scene, but also betrays every value that he should hold. He doesn't think his workers are important and that they should just endure his wrath at all times. He doesn't see how multiple people can be of importance to a project besides him of course. As soon as the money came in he threw every value he said he'd hold aside to become a huge capitalist, even going so far as making his own shell company that preemptively held the rights to a sequel just so he can profit from it more.
This entire situation is his fault. A "punk" ignores all his anticapitalist values, gives all his intellectual property to a capitalist, capitalism ensues and he becomes bitter because he didn't get a greater slice of the pie.
Let me be clear: I think a sequel should involve him. But I also believe he shouldn't be in a lead game designer position, more of a "lead story designer/writer". He has shown to not be all to competent in that and he WILL abuse his workers again. Somebody needs to be above him to manage his insanity.
Nothing against you, but I think endlessly hyping him up won't lead to that or even a good outcome. He will squander everything that he will be given. He is not a good person, he is a "Rockstar Developer" and I mean that as an insult.
Shitty people are abundant in the creative industries, I have no delusions about that. Probably even more of those that have no public presence. But that has no bearing on whether or not he should retain sole ownership of his work. It's an entirely separate issue. Andrzej Sapkowski is also a massive douchebag, but nobody would deny that The Witcher is his property.
There are also some pretty chill creative people who don’t care about the money and the fame much. Even though having money is nice and makes your life much easier.
I totally agree. Problem is just that he legally sold it, so he kinda fucked himself on that. It's also interesting to see how nobody in that situation seemed to have good intentions, just a bunch of assholes all around
I'm not convinced that is the case. The studio was purchased by a holdings company, then its CEO bought four early sketches of DE from the studio for pocket change. When Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere (writer) objected, they were demoted and later fired. Unless another exchange took place, I don't see how this would amount to Kurvitz selling his rights; at the very least, he still owns Sacred And Terrible Air (with DE itself naturally belonging to the studio).
he legally sold it
I think it's a bit less cut and dry than that...