Two former directors of Disco Elysium are accusing the current majority shareholders of ZA/UM studio, the developer and publisher of the game, of fraud. This is the latest development regarding their forced dismissal from the company earlier this year.
DualShockers previously reported on core members involuntarily leaving ZA/UM in October, which the studio responded to with a statement relaying they had no further comment at that time and their focus was on the studio's next project. The core members who left the studio were writer Helen Hindpere, art director Aleksander Rostov, and game director Robert Kurvitz. The two directors have broken their silence to reveal their side of the story.
In a post published to Medium today by Rostov and Kurvitz, the pair explains that in 2021, the majority shareholder at that time, Margus Linnamae, was bought out by a minority shareholder, Tütreke OÜ. Both Rostov and Kurvitz were minority shareholders who put a lot of trust into Linnamae to be fair to all parties, as Linnamae had also put up the initial capital when the studio was founded. Tütreke OÜ, on the other hand, is an investment company run by Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel which, according to the former directors, has a previous record of defrauding investors.
According to the pair, shortly after Kompus and Haavel became majority shareholders, they immediately began barring the two from managerial functions as well as their access to company information. After requesting access to documents, including financial records, they were terminated with no further action taken to grant access to these documents. Following their dismissal, the former directors allege that Tütreke OÜ illegally took funds from the studio itself to then take it over and force the pair out. These funds were part of the amount set aside for a possible Disco Elysium sequel.
Rostov and Kurvitz are now seeking legal counsel to take Tütreke OÜ to court in multiple countries, on both civil and criminal charges. They went further to claim that the crimes committed by Kompus and Haavel are punishable by up to three years of prison time. Even with these revelations, both directors expreseed their lament at having to take this course of action. They claim to not have the funds to sufficiently cover their legal fees but must continue on this path to ensure that they can have some piece of their life's work if all goes according to their plan.