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Volte posted:The fact that the 24-hour peak is more than 40% of the all-time peak on a game that was released three years ago is pretty incredible. And looking at that graph over time, it never really dipped all that much. It has a higher average concurrent player count than Doom Eternal, a game which peaked at over 84,000 players and came out more recently. The current spike in players is due to the Turkish translation coming out, you can see the daily players jump from ~1000 to ~5000 as soon as that dropped
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Nov 9, 2022 21:23
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Cpt_Obvious posted:To be more direct, you don't think the studio could have made enough money off of DE to partially fund a sequel? That's the thing, the game is funding a sequel because there's a game studio making it. So you add up 5 years of development on the game (assuming that includes pre-production and a small team), then the cost of the studio continuing for another 3 three years after release to work on a sequel and fund the Final Cut... those numbers don't say there's much money left. e: you wouldn't expect the player count to hold up for a game like this anyway, I only raise it because it gives a sense of the order of magnitude of sales and its place in comparison to other games in the industry.
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Nov 9, 2022 21:50
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Alchenar posted:I don't believe one mildly successful video game (Disco Elysium's peak players is 8k, https://steamcharts.com/app/632470#All, which is equivalent to Return to Monkey island, which gives a sense that it did well for genre) has remotely provided the riches it is claimed are being embezelled and fought over. I don't think an amount of money needs to remotely reach "riches" to be embezzled and fought over, especially in a post-Soviet country.
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Nov 9, 2022 21:56
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loving hell that Mick Gordon post
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Nov 9, 2022 22:00
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Oh it turns out their annual reports are all public? https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/12929505/Zaum-Studio-O%C3%9C?active_tab=fiscal_year_reports Yeah it looks like they made about 15m EUR off the game, with annual operating costs of around 600k, so a decent chunk of change and enough to take profits and merrily fund a sequel.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:02
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I could totally believe investors would try and steal a company, no matter how small, as long as it wasn't actively losing money. It doesn't seem implausible at all. I could also believe that the creators of this game were lazy assholes who had the spark of a good idea and coasted on the hard work others put in to actually produce it. I don't know what evidence there is to the contrary of that narrative either. I'm not going to assume either thing to be true, though my gut says it's more likely that financial greed ruining things. Looks like we'll have to see how things go in court.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:06
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But the thing is, if it was fraud then the main victim would have been the majority shareholder who was bought out with their own money... which you would assume they would have something to say about.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:14
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Alchenar posted:But the thing is, if it was fraud then the main victim would have been the majority shareholder who was bought out with their own money... which you would assume they would have something to say about. Maybe he's keeping his mouth shut cuz he got his money. Meanwhile, minority shareholders like Kurvitz and pals might be quite upset that their money was spent in such a way.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:24
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It also wasn't "his own money", it belonged to the company which he no longer owned.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:39
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sebmojo posted:loving hell that Mick Gordon post For real, I'm having a Deja Vu here.
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Nov 9, 2022 22:48
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Cpt_Obvious posted:https://medium.com/@artofrostov/to-fans-of-disco-elysium-concerning-the-situation-at-za-um-3e6bc46ea9c quote:We also believe in what Harrier du Bois calls “the law”. It’s not perfect, but it’s there to protect those who create from those who take. And so it will. Huh.
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Nov 9, 2022 23:53
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*drunkenly drives his car and breaks a water lock and puts a hole in a fence the Fracoginerian Calvary could fit through* I AM THE LAW
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Nov 10, 2022 00:01
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Lots of workers from other intellectual sectors get their poo poo stolen from them by management/investors/board once there’s payday. Designers, programmers, scientists, musicians, artists in general and whatnot. Getting them to look bad to the public is elementary PR maneuvering in favor of those interests, come on edit: especially if said people have openly declared politics in opposition of said interests dead gay comedy forums fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Nov 10, 2022 |
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Nov 10, 2022 00:09
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Excuse me, this man who was convicted of fraud would never lie to me. He's very rich!
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Nov 10, 2022 00:11
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Excuse me, this man who was convicted of fraud would never lie to me. He's very rich! The IP didn't make enough money to be worth stealing. This story doesn't add up, friends, countrymen!
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Nov 10, 2022 00:17
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The barrage of conflicting hearsay, obvious media manipulation, and bizarre public statements has left me with the following picture: Robert Kurvitz is probably a shithead, but he was also up-and-down hosed by a bunch of shady financial ghouls and their gibbering legal homunculi. Does that sound about right?
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Nov 10, 2022 00:21
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My first play through as a GOOD COP is validated. POWELL CURES KIDS posted:The barrage of conflicting hearsay, obvious media manipulation, and bizarre public statements has left me with the following picture: Robert Kurvitz is probably a shithead, but he was also up-and-down hosed by a bunch of shady financial ghouls and their gibbering legal homunculi. Does that sound about right? Probably yea. "Kurvit is a shithead yes BUT HE'S ALSO THE BEST drat GAME DEV AROUND!" -Kim probably
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Nov 10, 2022 00:26
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It’s ok to just not know where things stand
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Nov 10, 2022 00:34
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Fruits of the sea posted:It’s ok to just not know where things stand But...what would I post about, then?
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Nov 10, 2022 00:34
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:The barrage of conflicting hearsay, obvious media manipulation, and bizarre public statements has left me with the following picture: Robert Kurvitz is probably a shithead, but he was also up-and-down hosed by a bunch of shady financial ghouls and their gibbering legal homunculi. Does that sound about right? The only evidence for him being a shithead is what the people who stole from him are claiming. The evidence he's not is that there's at least three other people who actually know him who decided to stand by him for this. I'm sure he has personality flaws, as do most of us, but this doesn't look good for the moneybags so far.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:41
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POWELL CURES KIDS posted:The barrage of conflicting hearsay, obvious media manipulation, and bizarre public statements has left me with the following picture: Robert Kurvitz is probably a shithead, but he was also up-and-down hosed by a bunch of shady financial ghouls and their gibbering legal homunculi. Does that sound about right? Even if you're willing to settle here, I'd definitely add "a lot of people act like shitheads when they're being treated like poo poo". It's pretty elementary triangulation to gently caress someone over, let them get steadily more pissed off and unwilling to do their job, then tell everyone else they're a problem who has to go. I've had bosses who behaved in absolutely unacceptable ways — screaming, throwing things, tearing into subordinates — but who were also at the tail end of months of hundred-hour-a-week crunch, drunk, depressed, sole survivors of huge purges that had taken out all their friends and colleagues, sometimes the ones required to carry out the purges, and fully aware they were being used as circuit breakers by management. By circuit breakers I mean they'd been put in position to take the fall for poor decisionmaking higher up in the org. This isn't an excuse, you should never scream or throw things or cuss out you subordinates, but...people aren't always glowing saints when they're being treated badly. People do not have unlimited control over their own behavior under stress. Resources get depleted, people break down. Part of the responsibility for good personal conduct is on the company to provide an environment that treats people well. "Get rid of all the bad people" is very much necessary in a lot of places, but "we treated this person like poo poo, and now, regretfully, we must admit they are toxic and abusive" is an easy and cynical way to take advantage of that. I have no idea how to tell the difference from outside, though, except I guess to believe specific allegations rather than general companyspeak. Although that puts the onus on victims to come forward on the record and blrughrgre now I'm depressing myself
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Nov 10, 2022 00:50
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Megazver posted:The only evidence for him being a shithead is what the people who stole from him are claiming. The evidence he's not is that there's at least three other people who actually know him who decided to stand by him for this. Oh, it looks real, reeeeal bad for the moneybags. There's some real "song as old as rhyme" vibes there. I'm just extending the courtesy of assuming Kurvitz is a shithead because, well, when is it not a safe assumption that somebody is a shithead? e: General Battuta posted:Even if you're willing to settle here, I'd definitely add "a lot of people act like shitheads when they're being treated like poo poo". It's pretty elementary triangulation to gently caress someone over, let them get steadily more pissed off and unwilling to do their job, then tell everyone else they're a problem who has to go. Yeah, without anything actually specific to look at, the safe guess is that the (remarkably generic) claims against Kurvitz are 1) invention, 2) overblown, or 3) an understandably human reaction to a clearly toxic business arrangement. But since we don't have that "anything actually specific", it's a lot more juicy and fun to wildly speculate that everyone involved is some kind of bridge troll. POWELL CURES KIDS fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Nov 10, 2022 |
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Nov 10, 2022 00:50
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Being a shithead is endearing actually. I'm being serious.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:52
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I mean it wouldn't surprise me if Kurvitz was kind of lovely on a personal level. Harry is a toxic alcoholic in such a specific way it's hard to think he didn't draw on something lived and true to get to that point. But I also fully believe that the guy caught doing fraud might very well have done another fraud.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:53
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Haha yea if those sources are for real it’s awesome he treated women he worked with like poo poo. What a guy
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Nov 10, 2022 00:53
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Helen still likes him.
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Nov 10, 2022 01:04
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Megazver posted:The only evidence for him being a shithead is what the people who stole from him are claiming. The evidence he's not is that there's at least three other people who actually know him who decided to stand by him for this. besides that, there are the other dismissals (Rostov, Luiga, Hindpere et al). Is the same being said of them all? Luiga came out for Kurvitz even though they had creative animosity. Escalating that "someone can be hard to work with" to shithead, rear end in a top hat etc to tarnish them is something often done in retaliation: like, how many musicians have been put in an awful light because they went against garbage practices by studios? and they do it because it works. It's pervasive. A lot of people respond to this thing where they evaluate the matter in terms of personal dynamics, but for real, what relevance it has to the point that their poo poo got stolen from under their feet? It's not about whether Kurvitz, Luiga and the others would be good friends to hang around with, it's about having their labor of more than a decade being usurped
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Nov 10, 2022 01:05
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i just don't see why the people trying to hijack the studio and steal the intellectual property rights on behalf of the first man convicted of investment fraud in the country would be dishonest, especially about something that would be incredibly convenient for them based on zero evidence
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Nov 10, 2022 01:07
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What if the first man convicted of investment fraud in the country also said that women don't like his enemies?
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Nov 10, 2022 01:09
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i am a moron posted:Haha yea if those sources are for real it’s awesome he treated women he worked with like poo poo. What a guy Is anyone actually saying this?
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Nov 10, 2022 01:09
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i heard that ZA/UM is doing an official auction for an NFT of the of the martinaise drawbridge and I cannot wait to buy it
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Nov 10, 2022 01:11
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There was an article posted by someone who supposedly has sources in the company that I’m assuming no one read. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/disco-elysium-studio-zaum-confirms-former-employees-were-fired-for-misconduct quote:"They treated their co-workers very badly," Kompus told the Ekspress. "Despite talking to them repeatedly, things did not improve. Therefore, the company was forced to fire them. Robert [Kurvitz] is said to have been known for belittling women and co-workers in the past, but this was previously unknown to the company. It would be very short-sighted of a growing international company to tolerate such behaviour."
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Nov 10, 2022 01:12
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Omg he was rude 
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Nov 10, 2022 01:20
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according to the person who scammed them out of their property and an anonymous source that definitely isn't the other person that scammed them
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Nov 10, 2022 01:22
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As a rule of thumb, I always believe the fraudster being sued for fraud because I am a moralist and I believe in second chances 
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Nov 10, 2022 01:23
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i am a moron posted:There was an article posted by someone who supposedly has sources in the company that I’m assuming no one read. It was posted and reacted to earlier in this thread, I am a moron. Don’t sign my posts
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Nov 10, 2022 01:23
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Yea I’m sure ZAUM is an iron fortress and it’s impossible to find an employee and ask them questions. They probably have a seven foot Estonian supremacist guarding the front door and there’s no way whoever wrote this article has the physical instrumentation necessary to get in and ask questions
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Nov 10, 2022 01:25
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General Battuta posted:It was posted and reacted to earlier in this thread, I am a moron. Don’t sign my posts Someone literally asked ‘is anyone saying this’
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Nov 10, 2022 01:26
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Whoever is the largest gets to call the shots, it's called Marxism, maybe look it up?
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Nov 10, 2022 01:26
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i am a moron posted:There was an article posted by someone who supposedly has sources in the company that I’m assuming no one read. This is the same article where this same guy who "confirmed" that they were fired for misconduct also claims that they were scheming to steal ZA/UM's intellectual property. The IP which Kurvitz, Hindpere and Rostov had been working on since 2001, about 15 years before the studio even existed.
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Nov 10, 2022 01:30
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