American McGee: The Man, The Brand

There aren’t many cases in which a game designer’s name appears in a game’s title--and when it does, there’s a certain celebrity attached to the name. Sid Meier created classics with Civilization and Alpha Centauri, and so his name doesn’t just indicate a man: it also indicates a trusted brand.

American McGee is another game designer whose name has appeared in game titles, initially with 2000’s macabre American McGee’s Alice, though that project was hardly his first: he had a hand in games like Doom II and Quake before joining Electronic Arts, where Alice’s development began. Since then, McGee has lent his talents to a number of projects, including the upcoming action role-playing game Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, which was recently selected to be sold on Steam via the Greenlight approval process. I recently spoke with McGee, who currently works in Shanghai, China, where he leads the team at Spicy Horse as CEO. And the first thing I wanted to know was how the American McGee brand was born.

“It’s certainly less intentional than most people seem to think,” he says. “Still, it makes me laugh when I read people saying I’ve not earned my way into this elite club--or that because of the stinkers I’ve been associated with should have this ‘right’ revoked. Initially, the decision was driven by marketing and legal at EA. They were simply looking for a way to protect (make unique) the title for the original Alice game. Odd to think a ‘big evil’ publisher would have any interest in promoting an individual developer, but desire to protect one’s IP apparently outweighs inadvertently assigning name-brand recognition to a guy who, by most accounts, hadn’t earned it. So there we were.”

But trouble began once American left EA after the corporation fired American’s creative partner, R. J. Berg. Berg, a 15-year EA veteran, was instrumental in the story and writing of Alice. Yet even post-EA, the idea of “American McGee” as a brand name stuck, and McGee was approached by various publishers, asking if he would be associated with a game based on the perceived value of his name in addition to his talents as a developer.

“To this day it’s remained a sometimes useful, often distracting [issue] for me,” he says. “It’s not all bad though… while it appears to serve as a ‘warning label’ to some gamers (useful huh?) it’s also helped attract a loyal core group of fans--and still helps to open doors with publishers and other potential business partners.”

"The biggest lesson was not to expect EA to care about our fate once the final milestone was delivered."

As it turns out, McGee has had an occasionally tumultuous relationship with EA. Ultimately, McGee and his team at Spicy Horse were able to create Alice’s sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, which was published by his old employer. The financing for the game came from a bank, however--not from EA directly. Yet even then, EA tried to flex some muscle, according to McGee. “The milestones and schedule established when we signed the development agreement were untouchable; for example, EA couldn’t demand we produce an unscheduled, unpaid-for demo for E3 (though they did try).”

This ideal relationship couldn’t last forever, however. Says McGee, “That wonderful state of being lasted until the last 6 months of development, at which point EA bought out the loan and then went straight to the bag of ‘unreasonable things publishers do to developers.’ It wasn’t all that bad though--we had the fortune to work with a couple of really level-headed and reasonable producers.” Of course, by this point, McGee had realistic expectations of EA based on his previous experience, and, as he says, “things EA did to Rogue Entertainment after the first Alice was completed.” And what was his biggest lesson from those early days? “The biggest lesson was not to expect EA to care about our fate once the final milestone was delivered.”

McGee still remains wary of EA. When the subject turned to American McGee’s Oz, his first post-Alice project, I wanted to know when the idea for a twisted game set in L. Frank Baum’s universe was initially conceived. His response? “[Laughs] For legal reasons I’d better say, ‘Oh, the Oz idea didn’t hit me until long after I’d left EA!’ They can be pretty cranky when it comes to ideas being generated under their roof but ultimately developed elsewhere. In fact, they made me sign an agreement never to make a game based on Hansel & Gretel when I left. Odd, because I don’t recall ever suggesting to anyone that we do such a thing!”

Oz was the work of the studio McGee founded after he left EA, Carbon6, in conjunction with developer Ronin Games. Atari was set to publish Oz and had partially funded its creation, but in 2003, it canceled the deal, leaving the game without a publisher. McGee shopped the game to various publishers, but it was ultimately canceled, much to the chagrin of Alice fans excited to explore another crooked version of a beloved fantasy world.

Those fans weren’t the only ones saddened by the news. Says McGee, “That project being killed was really heartbreaking. The entire event filled me with so much disappointment and rage towards publishers. [It] being canceled not only ended the project, but closed the doors on a long-standing and highly respected developer, Ronin Games. It happened at a point when we had a beautiful, playable version of the game running--enough to make a stab at getting the game picked up elsewhere. But by the point it was killed, the project had already burned through a million dollars or more (that was a lot back then) and no other publisher wanted to pick up the tab in order to acquire the rights.”

The American McGee brand was hardly dead in the water, however. While vacationing in Hong Kong, McGee had met with Trevor Chan, creator of the strategy gem Capitalism, and founder of Enlight Software. Enlight was set to publish the open-world robot action game Scrapland, which was in development at Spanish studio Mercury Steam. Even more exciting, Chan wanted McGee to conceive a game for Enlight’s Hong Kong studio.

Alice has come a long way since her debut.

And so American McGee lent his name and expertise to Scrapland, though by the time he got involved, the game was almost complete. “My development involvement focused largely on tuning and clean-up,” says McGee. “Then the focus shifted to promotion (hence the ‘American McGee Presents’) titling. I was seriously impressed by what [Mercury Steam founder Enric Alvarez] and his team were able to accomplish. Working with them was a joy and to this day I dream of someday returning to Spain (which I love) and finding a way to work with them again. First I have to conquer China!”

Scrapland fared well, at least among critics. The project produced by Enlight’s Hong Kong group? Not so much. That game was Bad Day L.A., and, in the word of American McGee himself, “Development […] went badly from the start.”