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Best Friends posted:Fundamentally, this is all chaff to distract from the actual issue at hand. Even if the creators were genuine monsters with zero redeeming qualities (which is far from the case based on this) that has no bearing on the IP issue.
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May 30, 2023 17:58
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Endorph posted:i dont think literally anyone here is saying it does and its weird that people keep acting like there are people doing that. I am not saying anyone here is saying that. The video itself and its discussion is the larger context.
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May 30, 2023 18:40
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So we all seem to be in agreement that: A) IP theft happened and is super lovely B) Kurvitz was seriously difficult to work with We all think A is a lot worse than B. The people who did A are using B as an excuse, and we all think that is bullshit. At least that's what I've gotten out of this discussion so far. Perhaps there are opinions I'm not accounting for. But if the above is largely true, what exactly is being discussed? We can see and agree that B seems to have a lot of evidence without that having any bearing on A, no matter how much the IP thieves put up smokescreens. Likewise, B doesn't stop being true because something even worse happened to Kurvitz. The situation sucks, but at this point it's pretty clear, isn't it?
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May 30, 2023 18:58
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Josh sawyer (new Vegas, pillars of eternity, pentiment) saw his name dropped in the video in the context of accusations of kurvitz discussing the ip with him and is basically going “What the gently caress??” https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1663246672191975424?s=20 https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1663224696685596672?s=20 https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1663234073035431938?s=20
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May 30, 2023 19:20
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Aside from how this all legally shakes out, I'm getting the sense that the IP is dead. I'm just not really seeing a way forward. Any sequel that doesn't have the original members involved will be pretty doomed due to how widely known the legal situation surrounding the IP theft is to the fans. Whatever comes next might not be an outright failure, but it's not going to be Disco Elysium. That's assuming that Kurvitz et al. don't regain the rights. Even if they do however I don't see them doing well with what we've seen behind the curtain in that video. It would take a literal Angel Investor to come along to fund them, and basically babysit Kurvitz in his own special development group that doesn't have direct control over any other developers doing the actual work. However, considering what he and the other creators of DE have gone through, I wouldn't blame them for being paranoid and never going along with any sort of structure agreement that doesn't have them in complete and total control of everything for fear of losing it all again. Best case scenario seems to be hoping for a spiritual successor to emerge one way or another.
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May 30, 2023 19:33
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Here's a thing: I really like Chris Bratt as a presenter. He's not David Frost but he's the right level of enthusiastic and interested to be doing these niche nerdy topic documentaries. e: ^^ I think it would literally take Obsidian going "If you've got an idea lets talk but the job we are offering is Lead Writer and you can keep the IP rights but if you sign we are making this game with no backing out". That is the best possible hope and there's not really anyone else out there with an established team who have the experience of putting out games of this size and shape. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 19:40 on May 30, 2023 |
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May 30, 2023 19:35
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Why is there a need to insist that IP theft is more serious than interpersonal and professional misconduct? You can say that both are bad and one doesn’t take away from the other. You don’t need to diminish the grievances of employees to whom Kurvitz was a dick. The comparison is meaningful only in a nebulous philosophical classroom exercise.
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May 30, 2023 19:42
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Vegetable posted:Why is there a need to insist that IP theft is more serious than interpersonal and professional misconduct? You can say that both are bad and one doesn’t take away from the other. You don’t need to diminish the grievances of employees to whom Kurvitz was a dick. The comparison is meaningful only in a nebulous philosophical classroom exercise. Its not a question about which is "worse" it's the implication that one of them mitigates the other by putting them together like that
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May 30, 2023 19:46
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Vegetable posted:Why is there a need to insist that IP theft is more serious than interpersonal and professional misconduct? You can say that both are bad and one doesn’t take away from the other. You don’t need to diminish the grievances of employees to whom Kurvitz was a dick. The comparison is meaningful only in a nebulous philosophical classroom exercise. The question becomes why do we need to discuss them together? Imagine you got hit in a hit and run, but every time the hit and run is discussed conversation also somehow includes that you didn’t pay your taxes in 2020. These unrelated topics are being linked together consistently, which then makes it plausible that they’re being linked to justify, on some level, the ip theft.
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May 30, 2023 19:47
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I’m referring directly to this post and should have quoted it:Eiba posted:So we all seem to be in agreement that:
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May 30, 2023 19:47
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Might just be people having lovely bosses is kinda background noise to most goons. All of us have lovely bosses because that's the kind of person who gets promoted to management in almost all circumstances. The theft is a novel problem.
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May 30, 2023 19:51
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Best Friends posted:The question becomes why do we need to discuss them together? Imagine you got hit in a hit and run, but every time the hit and run is discussed conversation also somehow includes that you didn’t pay your taxes in 2020. These unrelated topics are being linked together consistently, which then makes it plausible that they’re being linked to justify, on some level, the ip theft. Because they're both loop back to the question of whether we will ever see a DE2.
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May 30, 2023 19:57
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Terrible Opinions posted:Might just be people having lovely bosses is kinda background noise to most goons. All of us have lovely bosses because that's the kind of person who gets promoted to management in almost all circumstances. The theft is a novel problem. People can also identify and get mad about having something of yours stolen with righteous anger, which has a satisfying feel to it. It also includes that same Bad Boss energy since it was the bad bosses at ZAUM that stole the IP. Fans can identify far more with the "tortured artists" which made the game they love more than they can identify with a group of tax dodging, money laundering, Sunday Friends.
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May 30, 2023 20:08
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Vegetable posted:Why is there a need to insist that IP theft is more serious than interpersonal and professional misconduct? You can say that both are bad and one doesn’t take away from the other. You don’t need to diminish the grievances of employees to whom Kurvitz was a dick. The comparison is meaningful only in a nebulous philosophical classroom exercise. If that's an actual subject people want to discuss, I guess that would make sense as a thing reasonable people could disagree on. My intention was less to push a particular narrative and more to clarify what people are actually disagreeing about, 'cause it looked like a lot of split hairs to me. But I guess even this nuance is proof enough that there's a lot of room for clarifying finer points of this situation so I guess that's a good response to my very general question.
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May 30, 2023 20:14
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Best Friends posted:Josh sawyer (new Vegas, pillars of eternity, pentiment) saw his name dropped in the video in the context of accusations of kurvitz discussing the ip with him and is basically going “What the gently caress??” "Josh Sawyer Denies Disco Elysium IP Theft" - IGN
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May 30, 2023 20:15
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Eiba posted:Well, okay. I don't have a strong opinion on which is worse. I was responding to a perceived sentiment that "who cares if Kurvitz was mean, the real crime was IP theft." And I don't think the ranking particularly matters so I was rhetorically conceding it. i think its less about ranking because people are free to be as angry about Kurvitz being an rear end in a top hat as much as they want. the objection is that by bringing them up together it implies that one of them mitigates the other.
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May 30, 2023 20:18
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Feels Villeneuve posted:i think its less about ranking because people are free to be as angry about Kurvitz being an rear end in a top hat as much as they want. the objection is that by bringing them up together it implies that one of them mitigates the other. And moreso that it's the very deliberate strategy of the IP stealers to conflate the two. It muddies the waters of this entire discourse.
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May 30, 2023 20:19
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at the same time you can also say that disco elysium's fans are using the ip theft as a distraction from the fact that the game might have been imperfect and its development hosed up even before this all started
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May 30, 2023 20:21
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and while its definitely the least important part of all this, in regards to the the 'will de2 even happen' conversation, the impression that i get from all of this is that that was a doomed project from the jump
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May 30, 2023 20:22
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To be honest the doc left me with more answers than questions. It sure sounds like the Final Cut was basically forced on the studio by investors, and then Kurvitz was sidelined while the studio was restructured around him along with the financial fuckery. As much as the video failed by conflating the two issues at the end, they kind of had to discuss both since "Kurvitz was an rear end in a top hat boss" was the reason they gave for firing him when it was plainly obvious that he was fired to cover up the bogus sale of the company.
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May 30, 2023 20:23
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Endorph posted:at the same time you can also say that disco elysium's fans are using the ip theft as a distraction from the fact that the game might have been imperfect and its development hosed up even before this all started but the video is about the ip theft
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May 30, 2023 20:24
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Feels Villeneuve posted:but the video is about the ip theft
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May 30, 2023 20:27
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we can compartmentalize them separately but we can also look at how the doc juxtaposes the two and draw conclusions on what its saying as a whole i think this kind of thing ties into a lot of weird discourse on "toxic auteurs" or whatever and i might be excessively tinged by a) the cynical marketing of the game after their firing, but i think its easy to object to how the doc frames this without like, trying to say that being an rear end in a top hat to subordinates is fine
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May 30, 2023 20:35
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Endorph posted:at the same time you can also say that disco elysium's fans are using the ip theft as a distraction from the fact that the game might have been imperfect and its development hosed up even before this all started You absolutely can not. Literally the only reason anyone ever brought it up in the first place was SPECIFICALLY to justify the IP Theft and the actions taken as part of it. That was explicitly and intentionally the reason Kurvitz's misbehaviour is a topic of discussion - no one ever tried to raise the issue separately in any way the IP discussion could be a distraction from. The explicit and nearly entire argument from ZA/UM leadership is that they had to force the entire creative team out and take the IP away from them specifically because Kurvitz was an rear end in a top hat. That's the context in which the initial accusation was raised. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:44 on May 30, 2023 |
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May 30, 2023 20:39
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pretty much all the stuff about him being an rear end in a top hat boss is from the final cut and when he was clearly being forced out, and even that stuff isn't really that bad. sucks his ip got stolen and sucks that this is the big expo video that got put out about it.
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May 30, 2023 20:41
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GlyphGryph posted:You absolutely can not. Literally the only reason anyone ever brought it up in the first place was SPECIFICALLY to justify the IP Theft and the actions taken as part of it. That was explicitly and intentionally the reason Kurvitz's misbehaviour is a topic of discussion - no one ever tried to raise the issue separately in any way the IP discussion could be a distraction from. yeah like this is maybe unfair but the first i saw people post about his behavior was right when he got fired, which made the whole thing seem like less-than-good-faith
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May 30, 2023 20:43
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conflating kurvitz's relationship with his employees with the ip theft is bad, but that doesn't mean we need to dismiss those employees concerns as a conspiracy in this thread, either. they're also workers, and just because they're put in a bad situation of having their grievances weaponized, doesn't make those grievances illegitimate. this is just a forum discussion, we don't really have to worry about the conflation issue here lmao
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May 30, 2023 20:51
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studio mujahideen posted:conflating kurvitz's relationship with his employees with the ip theft is bad, but that doesn't mean we need to dismiss those employees concerns as a conspiracy in this thread, either. they're also workers, and just because they're put in a bad situation of having their grievances weaponized, doesn't make those grievances illegitimate. Its relevant when the documentary thing is conflating it though, I think that's what's upsetting people
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May 30, 2023 20:52
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I mean, yes, but these concerns were never once aired prior to the news of Kurvitz's firing breaking and then the IP theft accusations shortly following. It was clearly seeded by ZA/UM management to discredit the counterpunch. ZA/UM employees didn't start alluding to it until all this went down. None of this takes away from having to deal with a lovely boss. No one is saying it does. But focusing on it is in a way playing into the PR strategy from ZA/UM, weaponizing legitimate concerns about employee well-being to obfuscate management's more systemic crime.
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May 30, 2023 20:55
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yeah thats what this discussion is about, but this thread isn't a video about the issue. we don't have to worry about PR, and it sucks to see people going "well they probably were exaggerating, it wasnt that bad" and your implication that they didn't feel this way until zaum coached them to. we all agree about conflating the issue, but the response to that isn't to be lovely about the other workers in this. its to be mad that ZAUM didn't care about the workplace environment complaints until they could use it in a legal battle like cmon lol
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May 30, 2023 21:02
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the individual workers are far bigger victims than kurvitz in this, especially the ones who had a lot of input into what disco elysium is but got little credit for it. they have just as much attachment to the ip as kurvitz and are forced into a situation where they either work under a scumbag to keep a steady job and continue working on something they have attachment to, or jump ship but without the name recognition kurvitz managed to get.
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May 30, 2023 21:05
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UnknownMercenary posted:To be honest the doc left me with more answers than questions. It sure sounds like the Final Cut was basically forced on the studio by investors, and then Kurvitz was sidelined while the studio was restructured around him along with the financial fuckery. and THAT's why the shiver's voice actor didn't know the melody to "where the hood at"
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May 30, 2023 21:09
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Endorph posted:the individual workers are far bigger victims than kurvitz in this, especially the ones who had a lot of input into what disco elysium is but got little credit for it. they have just as much attachment to the ip as kurvitz and are forced into a situation where they either work under a scumbag to keep a steady job and continue working on something they have attachment to, or jump ship but without the name recognition kurvitz managed to get. I mean you probably do want to jump ship without the name recognition kurvitz has
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May 30, 2023 21:14
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GlyphGryph posted:You absolutely can not. Literally the only reason anyone ever brought it up in the first place was SPECIFICALLY to justify the IP Theft and the actions taken as part of it. That was explicitly and intentionally the reason Kurvitz's misbehaviour is a topic of discussion - no one ever tried to raise the issue separately in any way the IP discussion could be a distraction from.
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May 30, 2023 21:24
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Yo I just bought this video game and played a couple of hours. I knew literally nothing about it except that it's an RPG. Seems fun. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should play like an rear end in a top hat the main character (whose name I don't know) seems like or not. Peace
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May 30, 2023 21:26
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JOHN SKELETON posted:Yo I just bought this video game and played a couple of hours. I knew literally nothing about it except that it's an RPG. Seems fun. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should play like an rear end in a top hat the main character (whose name I don't know) seems like or not. Peace 
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May 30, 2023 21:27
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After watching the doc, I find myself agreeing with Argo Tuulik the most. Not only because he seemed earnest about Kurvitz's flaws as much as his qualities, but also regarding the IP in general. There's no question the IP situation is hosed, but I don't see a world where Kurvitz gets it back and shares it with people like Tuulik or anyone who was there from early on. It's clear Kurvitz sees Elysium as his, on an almost fundamental level. He's also intensely egotistic. I don't believe it's right for him to have zero access to that world, regardless of being a garbage lead and colleague, but the idea of someone like Tuulik (among others) being cut off seems equally unhinged to me. There's no winning here unless they reconcile somehow. And given Kurvitz's words as much as his actions, that's not happening—nor should it. I feel for the workers. As for the Ilmar guy, he's clearly a slimy piece of poo poo. Couldn't stop being evasive. Even if his moves are deemed legal down the road, they're nauseating. That being said, I don't buy for a second a new corporate entity (the one supposed to benefit Kurvitz and co) was set up with Kurvitz, Rostov or Kender having no knowledge of it at all. Unless I missed that part, it seemed like something they weren't involved in. Maybe naive but: can one set up a company and make someone shareholder with them having no clue it's happening? Everything about the paperwork and financial dealings is a mess. It's bewildering. Some questions I wish the doc had answered (and directly asked to the relevant people): those shares Kurvitz and Rostov still have in the studio haven't changed at all since the beginning. They're still there—what shifted is the overall power balance. Can Kurvitz and Rostov block new Elysium games? Do they have any say at all? What happens if they try to create anything in that world? Does Kompus veto it as a majority shareholder? And so on. We're talking about an IP being "stolen" without really getting into what that means in practice. I would have loved to hear more from the workers about their current conditions at the studio as well. Finally: the fact that Kurvitz and Rostov are now working for NetEase is...yeah. That sure is something. Hip Gelatinous Cube fucked around with this message at 21:51 on May 30, 2023 |
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May 30, 2023 21:34
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to be honest any and all discussion here's gonna be gossiping anyway, nothing any of us can do about either situation. I guess with the IP thing at least you can say "I won't buy DE2 if it's not by the original team", but Kurvitz' lovely behaviour isn't strictly speaking anything to do with us - might be why people keep getting tetchy about it
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May 30, 2023 21:47
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JOHN SKELETON posted:Yo I just bought this video game and played a couple of hours. I knew literally nothing about it except that it's an RPG. Seems fun. Right now I'm trying to decide if I should play like an rear end in a top hat the main character (whose name I don't know) seems like or not. Peace Just do what feels right to you in the moment and everything will work out for the best. Someone's best anyway.
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May 30, 2023 22:18
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No sex crimes, hell yeah.
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May 30, 2023 22:32
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