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Pemptus: Call me douche as well if you must, but wasn't that a fairly reasonable response from the man? He could've worded it a bit better, I suppose, but feigning enthusiasm and love for the fans would be worse, in my opinion. Getting the same questions over and over again is not fun, believe me.
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GameRager: Who said anything about feigning? Shouldn't he care about his fans for real? Otherwise why be in the business?


Thing is he could at least make an attempt to get the game released somewhere and it'd be appreciated if he failed or succeeded....but he won't make the attempt because he's a lazy arse.
That is a very unkind thing to say. The man has no control over the work that will always be attached to his name. Worse, it's a cult classic so he is going to be pestered about it constantly. It's unfortunate that a fan gets snapped at but American has to live the frustration. Walk a mile in a man's shoes they say...

I'm guessing Madness Returns didn't do that well either. What if he was trying to move on?
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Pemptus: Call me douche as well if you must, but wasn't that a fairly reasonable response from the man? He could've worded it a bit better, I suppose, but feigning enthusiasm and love for the fans would be worse, in my opinion. Getting the same questions over and over again is not fun, believe me.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who was thinking the same thing. If EA owns in totality the rights to Alice, then it's not up to him at all - it's purely up to the marketing and finance people at EA, and the terms of whatever deal they inked with CDProjekt/GOG.

I'm sure that among his fanbase it would "feel good" to ask him to do something. However, if he tried, what good would it do? What would be the point? There's no credible or significant reason that I can think of for EA's people to listen to American McGee's requests concerning Alice. He doesn't even work at EA anymore in any significant capacity; Spicy Horse is an indie company that just used EA as a publisher for Madness Returns.

You'd have just as much success pestering Warren Spector to convince EA to release System Shock/System Shock 2 on GOG. If Microsoft ever signed on to GOG, pestering Jason Jones or Alexander Seropian wouldn't do much to get Halo on GOG either.
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GameRager: Who said anything about feigning? Shouldn't he care about his fans for real? Otherwise why be in the business?


Thing is he could at least make an attempt to get the game released somewhere and it'd be appreciated if he failed or succeeded....but he won't make the attempt because he's a lazy arse.
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Snickersnack: That is a very unkind thing to say. The man has no control over the work that will always be attached to his name. Worse, it's a cult classic so he is going to be pestered about it constantly. It's unfortunate that a fan gets snapped at but American has to live the frustration. Walk a mile in a man's shoes they say...

I'm guessing Madness Returns didn't do that well either. What if he was trying to move on?
He did, he released 3 games after Alice 2000. All three were flops and thus didn't sell so well (Scrapland was okay though, but, and a big BUT, it had Starforce DRM. And they never bothered to remove it, I regretted my buy.)
Also, a lot of other failed projects like Mcgee's OZ and the Alice movie which will most likely never see the light.
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GameRager: Also how big of an ego do you need to name yourself American? *rolleyes*
It wasn't his choice. This is from his old blog on the Wayback Machine, linked to his Wiki entry:

The question I get most often in life and in email is, "Is American your real name?" The answer is: Yes, my mother named me 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. No, I do not have any nicknames.
Post edited December 27, 2011 by rampancy
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GameRager: Who said anything about feigning? Shouldn't he care about his fans for real? Otherwise why be in the business?


Thing is he could at least make an attempt to get the game released somewhere and it'd be appreciated if he failed or succeeded....but he won't make the attempt because he's a lazy arse.
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Snickersnack: That is a very unkind thing to say. The man has no control over the work that will always be attached to his name. Worse, it's a cult classic so he is going to be pestered about it constantly. It's unfortunate that a fan gets snapped at but American has to live the frustration. Walk a mile in a man's shoes they say...

I'm guessing Madness Returns didn't do that well either. What if he was trying to move on?
I didn't mean to be so mean to him. I just think he could at least try to ask EA if they would release the old game on Gog/etc. It's not that much effort and people would leave him alone then perhaps.
If a public person like he is, doesn't want to answer in polite manner, he shouldn't answer at all.

Probably he couldn't do his wife this day, so he used his forums to release some frustration ;)

You know, there are some spam filters easily to set for example, if a message contains "Alice and GOG" - delete it automatically.
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GameRager: It's not that much effort and people would leave him alone then perhaps.
What I've personally noticed is that if you're the creator of a series - book, game, movie, whatever - people will rarely leave you alone.
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rampancy: She also tells me that she was thinking of naming me "Obnard".
Thanks a lot! Now I can't stop thinking about Obnard, American and Dovahkiin sitting in a support group for... uhm... children of (how did American call his mother?) "creative" persons oO
Post edited December 27, 2011 by real.geizterfahr
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wormholewizards: Who is he (American)? The developer?
He was a map designer at id Software for DOOM and Quake, after he quit he created Alice, or American McGee's Alice as its true title.

BTW, if you read the book Masters of DOOM, he does sound like kind of a douche, but who knows? :)
At least he responded within 12 hours, which is a much quicker response rate than other developers. He responded to Tantrix's question honestly and pointed out that he does not have any power in influencing if American McGee's Alice will be added to the Good Old Games library even if it was named after him as Electronic Arts owns the rights to the franchise.

On the whole, I believe we should be grateful that he responds at all to any queries he gets posed at him rather than either issuing a canned reply or just ignoring them because looking at that section on his website, he appears to answer each and every one.
Silly you for thinking developers or creators have any control over games in corporations.
What a misleading thread title. He in fact said nothing about GOG. Just annoyed he gets asked the same question over and over again. He should just have a FAQ and respond with see FAQ.
Seemed a pretty reasonable response to me. Also seemed a pretty silly question. You know that the publishers control the show. Developers have it hard enough as it is, without having to try kicking publishers into shape.
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wpegg: Seemed a pretty reasonable response to me. Also seemed a pretty silly question. You know that the publishers control the show. Developers have it hard enough as it is, without having to try kicking publishers into shape.
QFT
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wpegg: Seemed a pretty reasonable response to me. Also seemed a pretty silly question. You know that the publishers control the show. Developers have it hard enough as it is, without having to try kicking publishers into shape.
I know the difference, and I know developers have no publishing rights what so ever.
My point was if he could contact EA and ask them to release it on GoG, since EA DID join GoG. I was pointing that out. He has the contacts, the business ones, and just making a call to the EA higher ups would mean a lot.