American McGee

American McGee
American McGee in 2004
Born	American James McGee December 13, 1972 (1972-12-13) (age 36)
Occupation	Game designer
Known for	American McGee's Alice, Doom II, Quake
Website www.americanmcgee.com

American James McGee (born December 13, 1972) is an American game designer.

Career

McGee began his career at id Software.^[1] He worked on such games as Doom, Doom II, Quake, and Quake II in the areas of level design, music production, sound effects development, and programming. In 1998, he moved to Electronic Arts, where he worked as a consultant on many projects and also created his own game, American McGee's Alice. After finishing Alice, he left Electronic Arts (EA) and founded his own company, The Mauretania Import Export Company, of which he is the president.

McGee produced the game Scrapland with Enlight Software in 2004, and later released Bad Day L.A. in 2006 with the same partners. American McGee's Oz has been cancelled while other projects are in development. American McGee's Grimm has been developed by his design house, Spicy Horse, for the online service GameTap. It is currently being released on GameTap in weekly episodic segments.

At the 2009 D.I.C.E. Summit, it was announced by Electronic Arts CEO, John Riccitiello, that a sequel to American McGee's Alice is in development for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 by American McGee's Spicy Horse studio.^[2][3]

Films

Production of the Oz game has been put on hold, which McGee attributes to a lack of interest at game publishing houses in new ideas and products without established market names. In order to get a publisher, McGee has decided to sell the game as a film before actually finishing it. He was recently set to write the script for the Oz films, which is said to be a trilogy, that would be produced by Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer. McGee spearheaded an attempt to launch a film adaptation of his Alice game, but the project collapsed and fell into obscurity for several years. It was finally picked up by Universal Pictures and was set to be released as Alice in July 2008. In 2004 the project moved from Dimension Films to 20th Century Fox, but in 2005 Universal Pictures acquired the rights. As of June 2008, producer Scott Faye indicated the film was in "turnaround" from Universal. He admitted that the script needed development, but would be used to attract the attention of a new studio. While McGee has had no control of Alice and only limited control of Oz, he is expected to exercise more control over Grimm.

Personal life

His stated mission is "to create a unified production method for story telling across the interactive and film industries" and of himself, he says, "I want to be the next Walt Disney, only a little more wicked."

Upon inquiry about his unusual name: "My mom was a hippie. I'm not sure how else to put that... She claims a woman she knew in college, who named her daughter 'America', inspired the name. She also tells me that she was thinking of naming me 'Obnard'. She was and always has been a very eccentric and creative person."^[4] He has also stated that there is only one other person in the world named "American" and "he was named after me."^{[citation needed]}

Currently, McGee resides in Shanghai in the People's Republic of China where he works with Spicy Horse and Vykarian, a game outsourcing company. They are currently producing American McGee's Grimm.^[5]

Works

• American McGee's Alice (2000)
• American McGee presents: Scrapland (2004)
• American McGee presents: Bad Day L.A. (2006)
• American McGee's Grimm (2008)
• American McGee's Return of Alice (2011)

See also

• Alice, game-derived film
• dredg, "Same Ol' Road" music video directed by McGee^[6]

References

External links

• Official website
• The Mauretania Import Export Company
• Spicy Horse Design House
• Vykarian
• American McGee's entry at MobyGames
• An Interview with American McGee
• Interview with American McGee in Spanish
• Skewed and Reviewed Interview with American McGee