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Wonder if the money asshole(s) in charge of ZA/UM will find a way to steal the IP for this one from the original creators, too, the way they did with Disco Elysium.
Or is this a more "traditional"modern video game[1] industry situation where the IP is already directly owned by the company (i.e. the money asshole[s]) from the outset, and the people who actually do the work of creating it can just get fucked if they don't like that (especially if the "company" decides to make any shitty, stupid changes to the thing along the way)?
[1] - See also: general software, entertainment, or really just any other business/industry where anything and everything that is invented/created on "company time" and/or using "company assets/equipment" just automatically belongs wholly to the "company" rather than the person/people who actually made the thing or came up with the idea.
(EDIT)
"ZA/UM's New RPG Is Similar To Disco Elysium Because 'We're Still the Same People'"
Uh, no, you literally, demonstrably are not the same people. The original creators of Disco Elysium (and by that I mean the ones who actually came up with the idea of it all, from the original Püha ja õudne lõhn novel and other such things, not whatever rando grunts who happened to be working in the trenches while the game itself was being made) were dubiously fired in the process of ZA/UM stealing their IP. (Even the very term "ZA/UM" itself, for which the company was named, was part of that IP that was stolen. And given what "ZA/UM" is, in the original Sacred and Terrible Air book, it's actually ironically appropriate that the company was named that.) The current Ship of Theseus version of ZA/UM is just trying to ride the coattails of the success of their predecessors, with something that looks superficially identical, but which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I will give current, counterfeit ZA/UM at least this much credit, though: even they knew they wouldn't be able to pull off another game explicitly set in the Elysium world (given the people who actually created and knew that world are no longer at ZA/UM, even if ZA/UM still technically owns the IP), which is why this new shit is "Cold War" whatever the fuck I don't actually care. It's why all the actual direct follow-ups to Disco Elysium that were (ostensibly) in the works were unceremoniously canceled between then and now.
This shit is going to be so ass.
(/EDIT)
Or is this a more "traditional"
[1] - See also: general software, entertainment, or really just any other business/industry where anything and everything that is invented/created on "company time" and/or using "company assets/equipment" just automatically belongs wholly to the "company" rather than the person/people who actually made the thing or came up with the idea.
(EDIT)
"ZA/UM's New RPG Is Similar To Disco Elysium Because 'We're Still the Same People'"
Uh, no, you literally, demonstrably are not the same people. The original creators of Disco Elysium (and by that I mean the ones who actually came up with the idea of it all, from the original Püha ja õudne lõhn novel and other such things, not whatever rando grunts who happened to be working in the trenches while the game itself was being made) were dubiously fired in the process of ZA/UM stealing their IP. (Even the very term "ZA/UM" itself, for which the company was named, was part of that IP that was stolen. And given what "ZA/UM" is, in the original Sacred and Terrible Air book, it's actually ironically appropriate that the company was named that.) The current Ship of Theseus version of ZA/UM is just trying to ride the coattails of the success of their predecessors, with something that looks superficially identical, but which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I will give current, counterfeit ZA/UM at least this much credit, though: even they knew they wouldn't be able to pull off another game explicitly set in the Elysium world (given the people who actually created and knew that world are no longer at ZA/UM, even if ZA/UM still technically owns the IP), which is why this new shit is "Cold War" whatever the fuck I don't actually care. It's why all the actual direct follow-ups to Disco Elysium that were (ostensibly) in the works were unceremoniously canceled between then and now.
This shit is going to be so ass.
(/EDIT)
