American McGee stated that, “After 20 days and much nail-biting, the Alice: Otherlands campaign has reached a successful conclusion. Coming in at over $222K, the funding will allow us to create a series of animated short films, pursue larger animated series possibilities, begin development work on a feature film and access larger funding options for a possible feature film production in the future. All thanks to the kind support of our backers on Kickstarter. You rock!”

Of course, half of that amount will go into securing the rights for 12 months in order to produce the animated shorts, with the remaining amount paying for animation. The film rights will require a lot more – roughly $500,000 – but following the completion of the short films, it wouldn’t be hard for Spicy Horse to bring in funding from executives interested in financing the project.

McGee also noted that, “Spicy Horse doesn’t take a profit from any of this. Money comes in, part goes out to pay for the rights, other part goes out to fund animation production (with an external team). In this since, we’re being pure producers, but not taking a fee of any sort.”

The reasons for this are simple however: founder American McGee is prioritizing the rights for a film based on Alice first.

As explained on Kickstarter, “First, we’re facing a challenge with the Alice film rights. Since working to remove it from the Oz campaign we’ve been unable to launch it as a separate campaign here on Kickstarter – the submission has been rejected multiple times and our appeals have failed (multiple campaigns are not allowed). To launch a campaign for the Alice films rights means we must first shut down the Oz campaign.”

He also explained that the progress the campaign had made so far was also a contributing factor. Despite amassing $141,513 in funds and 2,607 backers, it was only on track to make 30 per cent of its $950,000 goal by the deadline of August 5.

The fact that OZombie wouldn’t have met its crowd-funding goal by the deadline on August 5th was also a factor. “Second, we wouldn’t consider shutting down the Oz campaign if it were trending towards success. As it is, we’ve reached 15% of our goal with 20 days left in the campaign. Projections suggest we’ll hit 30% of our goal by campaign end. I’ve been telling myself to remain optimistic and see this thing through – but when the reality of our funding trend is combined with the pressure of the Alice film rights situation…

“For Oz, we can always launch another campaign in the future. On the other hand, the Alice film rights are only within reach during a rapidly closing window of opportunity. We’ll sacrifice Oz today in order to have a real chance with Alice.”

McGee has promised news regarding the Alice film Kickstarter later this week.

McGee posted on his blog that, “Just want to say to all the press, public and others who are gnashing their fangs at Kickstarter, Double Fine and anyone they think look ‘fishy,’ you can’t have it both ways.

“You can’t complain about big publishers and their bad business models – highlighting all the times they’ve pushed overpriced, buggy, unfinished product onto the shelves in hopes of a quick buck. Then when an indie developer lays bare their business model and struggles, crucify them for taking risks and being honest.

“In both cases the hyperbole is through the roof and completely unproductive.”

“The games you play cost huge amounts of money to develop and market. Productions are insanely complex, which means there are many places where they can breakdown or fail. Outcomes aren’t predictable, so that money to fund these things is nearly impossible to come by. Simply put, this shit is hard.

“Things are going to go sideways and sometimes horribly wrong. Instead of wanting to murder someone when they level with you about these facts, embrace them. The choice is yours – support transparency, honesty and constructive involvement…or don’t complain when the industry shrugs and shifts back to a model dominated by monolithic, uncaring publishers.”

While Broken Age does indeed require more funds, Schafer announced that Double Fine would not be asking more money from Kickstarter backers. Instead, the game will be released in two parts with the first part releasing on Steam Early Access and funds from this being used to complete the second part. Kickstarter backers will still receive beta access earlier than Access users, but most importantly, this step was taken in order to ensure that Broken Age doesn’t get pushed back all the way to 2015.

It’s finally been decided that Spicy Horse will go with OZombie and it has launched a Kickstarter which has already garnered $41,693 of its $950,000 goal from 511 backers with 41 days still to go.

On the decision to go with OZombie, American McGee stated that, “We’re still having meaningful and productive conversations with EA regarding Alice. Truth is, it’s an important bit of IP for them and for us (and for you!) which means that negotiating a deal is going to take time. This is normal. Think about it this way – it took over 12 months (yes, 12 months!) to negotiate and close a deal for Alice: Madness Returns.

“This time around, we started talking with EA about a new Alice during GDC 2013 and those talks are still ongoing. Everyone involved in the talks knew about the upcoming Kickstarter campaign and has worked towards getting something in place that would could link with the campaign. Who knows? We might still get there before this campaign ends, but past experience has taught me not to bet on things like this.”

OZombie looks pretty enticing though. Check out the Kickstarter page for more info.

Currently positions are for those willing to work and live in Shanghai, but as the post states, “Relocation is available in special cases. Better if you’re already in Shanghai or China.”

There has been enough hype for American McGee’s works since Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, Spicy Horse’s last title, was successfully funded through Kickstarter. McGee has been hyping up Alice: Otherlands for some title now, with the IP staying with Electronic Arts. Despite the difficulties in getting a deal to happen, there’s an extremely good chance we may see Alice return.

On other hand is OZombie, which looks to combine the Wizard of Oz with zombies and steam-punk gameplay. Check out the official Facebook page for American McGee for regular updates on both titles, including art work and concept designs.

As the page states, “So, to the 6 of you following so far, what say you to a Kickstarter in say… July of this year to fund the third Alice game? Thoughts?”

McGee previously talked about licensing the game from Electronic Arts, if they were interested, and then funding the game via Kickstarter in a way similar to Akaneiro. It’d be interesting to see the response, given how Alice: Madness Returns didn’t exactly rub gamers the right way when it released in 2011.

Though there other factors at hand there, it would be great if Otherlands returned to the original’s fantasy horror bent of mind.

“EA owns the Alice franchise, so to pull off crowd source funding would require some innovative licensing and legal acrobatics all-round. That being said, if EA’s willing to license us the IP and the audience is willing to back the production, we could end up doing something quite historic.

“With all the negative press ‘big corporations’ are getting these days, there could be a win-win in here for everyone – EA benefits from appearing to be flexible, a developer (that’s us) gets to work on something they love and the audience gets direct involvement in a development with the possibility of showing the world what happens when indies and fans take the reins.

“We’re seeing this work wonderfully with Akaneiro – I’d love nothing more than to now apply that process and engagement to Alice.”

McGee describes the game as combining “the psychological and physical, allowing us to present Alice as a sort of mind hopping superhero able to invade Otherlands – the mental landscapes of people around her.”

American McGee needs no introduction. The veteran PC developer has a lot of experience under his belt and in an interview with Forbes, he revealed his thoughts on the recent SimCity debacle and why both the parties need to calm down.

“There are right and wrong ways to solve the problem, for sure. Customers have a right to expect that products they’ve purchased perform as advertised,” he said.

“That being said, developers and publishers face extinction if they can’t solve the piracy issue while at the same time addressing the demands gamers make regarding connected and accessible games (I see these two things going together).”

He is based in China and there are plenty of gaming companies there that aren’t affected by piracy and make profitable games.

“Western developers have some obstacles to overcome before they get there. Not sure I see how incendiary media coverage or player reactions are warranted when things don’t work as expected,” he revealed.

“Do gamers or the media think EA or Blizzard wanted things to go so badly at launch? Do they think all the screaming and gnashing of teeth actually helped resolve those issues more quickly? There’s got to be a balance to the relationship.”

His analogy was quite humorous as well.

“Just because you’ve given a restaurant your business doesn’t entitle you to throwing molten cheese fries in your waiter’s face if your margarita comes out frozen instead of on the rocks. People need to relax a little and stop turning everything into World War III – Gamers vs. The Man. There are no winners in that scenario.”

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below.

Speaking to Forbes, McGee stated that, “It’s nice that they’re moving towards what looks like more developer-friendly hardware and indie friendly distribution. Remains to be seen if the appearance matches reality. Overall, I think this generation of consoles will struggle painfully against the momentum of mobile/online games we’re seeing globally.”

On the basis, he’s more excited about how “we’re going to see devices emerging which change their form, function and interface depending on where or for what they’re being used.

“More than anything it’s interface that’s going to drive the most significant change – things like Oculus Rift will radically change people’s demands and expectations – that’s where the real revolution is going to start.

“Nothing will be able to compete with full immersion and seamless interface being powered by a processor stack in your pocket.”

Now, the game has achieved its Kickstarter goal but just barely with $204,680 pledged by 2,681 backers. McGee stated that, “We’ll get working on delivering campaign rewards – starting with virtual items like Karma. The development team will begin work on their planning and we’ll post info about delivery dates ASAP.

And since there will be an Android version, the topic of development for the console Ouya came up. “Lots of questions about Ouya, so we’ll start figuring out what we can do to support that demand. Physical items will start to get shipped around, signed and sent out. And we’ll keep you updated throughout.”

Akaneiro: Demon Hunters is a Japanese mythological spin on the classic tale of Red Riding Hood, with action elements and, well, demons.

Source: GIBiz