ZA/UM, the studio famous for making Disco Elysium, is reportedly going through some rough restructuring of their own.
As reported by VideoGames.SI, the company is looking at cancelling at the project codenamed X7, and is laying off 24 employees. That amounts to roughly 1/4th of all employees at the studio.
ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus shared this message as part of an internal email with employees:
“Despite concerted efforts over the past eight months by our management team and the X7 disciplines, following consultation with our management team, I have taken the difficult decision to cancel X7. This decision, unlike the pause on Project P1, will unfortunately most likely lead to redundancies within our studio.
With the cancellation of X7 we are proposing to reshape our team to support our two remaining games. This adjustment will almost certainly lead to redundancies, mostly affecting the X7 team but also our non-development teams and non-X7 projects.”
ZA/UM president Ed Tomaszewski told staff in an internal email that X7 “was a game that was one to two years away from completion.” Ed also asserted it would have required “more time and effort than Disco Elysium did.”
Sources within the company blame mismanagement and point to alleged gender discrimination. But at this point we have to discuss the big elephant in the room.
Two years ago, ZA/UM underwent immense internal turmoil, when Robert Kurvitz, ZA/UM’s co-founder and lead designer, went to war with the board and management of ZA/UM. Initial coverage seemed to indicate bad practices by management, such as forcing Kurvitz and other ZA/UM employees to leave the organization involuntarily.
However, reports from YouTube channel People Make Games, as well as independent investigation by Estonian journalists, revealed a muddled picture, as Kurvitz, alongside Kurvitz’ friends like art director Alexander Rostov, and writer Helen Hindpere, were accused of creating a toxic work environment, as well as workplace misconduct, and mismanagement on their end.
Kurvitz brought ZA/UM to court, as well as Rostov, and ZA/UM’s other co-founder, investor Kaur Kender. Kender settled with ZA/UM, while Kurvitz and Rostov lost their cases to ZA/UM due to lack of evidence.
What is evident is that what remained of ZA/UM continued to have problems after these cases ended. There were people in the studio who sided with or against Kurvitz, based on evidence shared by Youtube channel People Make Games and Estonian media.
But even when we were covering this case, much of the information around it was not getting out of their native Estonia. So, the wider video game industry and the gaming community alike are forced to deal with news about this company with limited information of what’s going on there.
At least, what we know from Videogames.SI’s report is, ZA/UM have now cancelled three of their five ongoing projects in the last three years, and the company now plans to continue changes to maximize the chances of their remaining two projects.
In any case, it remains true that it’s bad to see the industry continue to see layoffs. We wish the outgoing, and also the current, employees of ZA/UM the best, and we hope those who are leaving find placement back in the industry, if that’s what they want.
