American McGee says they were "emotionally quite destroyed" by EA canceling Alice Asylum, and now they can't touch the IP "for the rest of [their] life

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 309 points –
American McGee says they were "emotionally quite destroyed" by EA canceling Alice Asylum, and now they can't touch the IP "for the rest of [their] life
gamesradar.com
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Ah they nailed him with a noncompete for that public domain IP. Crafty.

He nailed himself when he took people's money, spent all his energy on the "game bible," and then promised he would make a game he did not have authority to make. It's not like it was a surprise to him. He's the victim of his own decisions ultimately here.

Alice was a cool game. The 2nd one was...we can say good. He got two at-bats for the game, it never took off, the second sold particularly poorly. The cult following isn't enough and frankly he has demonstrated very little of what would make this new game so special. He had one cult hit almost 25 years ago and ansolid but not special, kind of buggy follow-up. I just think this entire project is all audience hype at this point.

I mean, I get it. Its a cool idea, a cool world, and its his brain child.

Tbh its kinda bullshit he cant make a game for a world EA will literally never ever ever use. Theyve just shoved it as far up their own asses and plan on keeping it there.

Id rather a shitty 3rd game than never getting another shot at a cool world.

Yeah, I don't get it, the 2nd one is also kinda meh compare to what other contemporary games were already doing at the time. (tech/style/game mechanics). Like yeah you don't have to follow the trend, but it still feels like a quake era game in the Assassin's Creed era(don't know what other games to better show the 2010s open world trend).

Great example with AC. AC2 came out a year prior and brotherhood around the same time as A:MR. Say what you want about the series, those 2 games were excellent. Leaps and bounds ahead of what we saw with Alice.

I feel the same way. It must be absolutely miserable to work on a game for so long and then be shut down by a legal department, but he knew the risks.

Exactly. He counted on his clout to carry the day. I get it, you love the project man, but that was reckless and a known risk. I mean he basically counted on building enough momentum to convince the publisher and he didn’t achieve the goal.

For what it’s worth, you can’t use public domain to make a copy of someone else’s take on that public domain character. It’s like how Winnie the Pooh is public domain but you can’t make a Winnie the Pooh with a red shirt and no pants since thats clearly Disney’s version which isn’t public domain.