wycha on 29/12/2024 at 12:42
Quote Posted by Kamlorn
That's not a bug, that's a feature!
Nikolai Dybowski is in deep alcohol addiction, abuser and sexual predator aiming for underage and students. His soon ex-wife, Renata, whom he married in his 40s while she was 18 and his student in HSE university shared information about his recent actions since ~2020: an attempt to kidnapping his son, not paying allimony and tried to become economically unstable by 'selling studio' to do that, beating Renata's father, mentally abuse Renata.
During his years as teacher in HSE university he groomed female students and then hire in the IPL studio for work. Controlling their finances, education and industry contacts. The sexual assaults would take place in the IPL studios. One of the ex IPL employee also mentions his girlfriend was groomed by Nikolai, and his sexual advances towards young girls were open secret.
According to an ex IPL worker Nikolai managment practices includes and i will put aside alcoholism, molesting young women at work, creating toxic atmosphere of abuse and work unter the stress. Well, he commited no work from his side and forcing other to do his part, having no consistent idea about the direction of the game, not filling any obligation he had to. Quite similar to his HSE university teaching where he did lectures while being drunk, and teaching nothing about programming part of designing games as he supposed to, due to his lack of knowledge in the field. Associating his name with IPL games only do him favor.
Keep in mind I am doing summary from what I remember. There are way more worms in the can that should be read by your own. There are also fanmade documentation in attempt to keep track with allegations and keeping Renata and other victims claims.
(
https://dtf.ru/flood/3304065-nikolai-dybovskii-pohitil-syna)
Renata's DTF post (rus)
(
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathologic/comments/1hiz0kk/comment/m3916at/)
translation of Renata's post (eng)
(
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathologic/comments/1hiz0kk/comment/m34htyg/)
The ex-employee reddit post(eng)
(
https://dtf.ru/u/2232640-alina-danilenko/3309019-dybovskii-ubiica-ice-pick-lodge)
Another ex-employee DTF post (rus)
Post attempting to condense information in one text.
(https://www.tumblr.com/faetthorn/771083422208868352/a-complete-relaying-of-dybowskis-abuse?source=share) tumblr(28th dec 2024)
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Sk3ewM8XeeZ7JaLCxbYfAXGHm5l4u-L46PWFdFq804/edit?tab=t.0) google doc(https://www.reddit.com/r/pathologic/comments/1hk5a8s/additional_nikolay_dybowski_accusations/) Reddit post condensing allegations from 2021 and 2024.
wycha on 29/12/2024 at 12:53
It is impossible to praise IPL studio works and financially support them without praising and financially supporting Nikolai Dybowski.
Kamlorn on 29/12/2024 at 18:32
Yeah, it's impossible to praise anything without knowing it's authors political opinion, sexual orientation, size of shoes nowadays. Isn't it?
I kinda miss those times when that company logo ( be it IPL ragdoll or Bethesda cogwheel), shortly appearing before start menu, reminded you only about some well spent evenings or interesting, you know, videogames they'd created before... Not their CEO underwear color.
Starker on 29/12/2024 at 19:13
While abuse is undoubtedly very personal, perhaps even more personal than the color of your underwear, it's also something that's in public interest. Even from a purely egotistical self-serving point of view, we want to know the conditions in the industry, because it directly impacts us as the audience. Because for every project that has successfully finished under terrible conditions, I can guarantee you there are many more than didn't.
wycha on 9/1/2025 at 07:43
Quote Posted by Kamlorn
Yeah, it's impossible to praise anything without knowing it's authors political opinion, sexual orientation, size of shoes nowadays. Isn't it?
I kinda miss those times when that company logo ( be it IPL ragdoll or Bethesda cogwheel), shortly appearing before start menu, reminded you only about some well spent evenings or interesting, you know, videogames they'd created before... Not their CEO underwear color.
This user really is approving domestic abuse, and sexual abuse as long as it produces a video game for their own comfort. Even they trivialize and ridicule the impact of abuses!
kdoug on 4/2/2025 at 03:39
Quote Posted by wycha
This user really is approving domestic abuse, and sexual abuse as long as it produces a video game for their own comfort. Even they trivialize and ridicule the impact of abuses!
I get where Kamlorn is coming from, but damn, Nikolai sounds truly awful. It's such a shame because the Pathologic games are truly wonderful, and supporting IPL used to be a no-brainer before all this dirt came out.
All that said, more people worked on the Pathologic games than just Nikolai. If the games were made by him alone in his basement, then yes, definitely DO NOT support them, but they're made by a whole team of talented people. It sounds like the creators of Pathologic 3 went through quite a lot of turmoil to get the game shipped, and it would be wrong to not celebrate their work because their boss is evil. As you said, Nikolai barely knows how to make a video game, so the work isn't all his.
It's a complicated issue. In this scenario we're not just separating the "art from the artist" because Pathologic is not a singular vision - it's a result of input from a team of people. I hope IPL can remove Nikolai as CEO and continue to make great games without him.
