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Sure, why not - third group of former Disco Elysium devs announce “revolutionary new RPG studio"With a worker’s co-operative structure that includes a “voice of the gamers”
With a worker’s co-operative structure that includes a “voice of the gamers”
Summer Eternal don’t have a name for their first RPG yet. They’re currently looking “to gather authors, writers, designers who previously worked together on Disco Elysium, as well as new talent, all of us who have yearned to work together on something completely fresh and original, and create a liberating space for us and other veteran RPG developers to finally, after many years, collectively start innovating again in this game space”.
Whatever their eventual RPG project proves to be, Summer Eternal are broadly aiming to do what they feel Disco Elysium did, and smash all precedents to pieces. “I believe that the last time around we made something genre-breaking,” writes Argo Tuulik onthe studio’s site(which, let me tell you, wasreally hard to read and digest at short notice). “Discipline-transcending. Something completely new. I am not ready to give up on that.
“The lessons learned, skills developed, experience forged - for five fucking years I’ve been waiting to put them to use,” he continues. “So we went back to the drawing board with one goal in mind - let’s do it fresh from the start, but this time let’s not fuck each other the moment the checkered flag drops. It makes the entire mankind look bad.”
The part about mistreating creatives is a reference to the bitter recrimination and legal battle between ZA/UM studio management and ousted staff like Kurvitz and writer Helen Hindpere, following Disco Elysium’s release. Many of the people who created the game no longer work at ZA/UM, hence the abundance of alumni projects. Nic hasa summary of all that for you here.
“On the one hand, private capital (sometimes in the cloak of “patrons of the arts”) has been the preferred shortcut to funding the riskier segment of the arts,” he continues. “On the other hand, capital will always prioritise profit over sustainability and artistic expression, leading to various budgetary and creative conflicts. Thus, the question of organisation becomes a question of the balance of power in this dangerous dance.”
A further 20% of shares will go to a limited liability company for investors: once Summer Eternal’s game is released, this LLC will have a revenue-share model, similar to standard publishing contracts. And the final 5% of shares? That’ll go to a non-profit organisation that accepts membership from people who buy Summer Eternal’s games. This in-house “voice of the gamers” will be able to use its share of revenues “to organise events, support union-work, or whatever their assembly (comprised of all members) decides on”, in addition to being able to summon general assemblies with the other three groups to discuss Summer Eternal’s direction.
“However, often forgotten in this money lust are the creatives themselves, first instrumentalized for press releases and afterwards underpaid, silenced, bullied, sued, abused…” it goes on. “But it is all of us - the creatives, the workers, the players - who should be holding control over the means of our creation and who should be celebrated on this day.”
I am very happy that the makers of Disco Elysium are back at it, in various guises. The game itself is an incredible RPG - an acerbic and imaginative tale of revolutionary hope and despair, a game with real pain and striving in it. ZA/UM’s implosion since has been horrible to witness. That said, I’m not sure reality can sustain this many attempts to rebottle the lightning. I am officially calling a moratorium on Disco Elysium spiritual successors until next week, at least.
- yes, scholars of dialectical materialism, I know that Marx didn’t really go for the “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” thing
