American McGee To Open Shanghai Game Studio

Veteran developer American McGee (Bad Day LA, American McGee's Alice) has announced via his personal weblog that his company, The Mauretania Import Export Company, is to open a new game development studio in Shanghai. The first title from the new team will be delivered on an episodic schedule and is set in “a dark, fairy tale universe”. McGee’s blog also features a piece of concept artwork from the game, produced by Ken Wong. No other details of the game are provided but McGee indicates that the new studio is looking for new team members, including programmers, artists, level designers, writers, musicians and producers. A previous blog entry suggests that McGee’s interest in China lies in the country’s huge population and associated potential for cost saving. “When looking at where game and film production are going in the U.S. and around the world it is clear that only a factory approach to art asset production will satisfy exponentially increasing demand from the market,” comments McGee. “To that end I’ve been working with a collection of industry leaders in China to build the world’s biggest and best art outsourcing factory.” The outsourcing venture McGee is involved with, Vykarian, was previously referenced at Gamasutra, since it has recently signed a deal with in-game ad firm Double Fusion to make available 3D advertisements to the company's clients. McGee rose to prominence as a level designer working at Id Software and was involved in titles such as Doom II, Quake and Quake II, before moving to Electronic Arts for American McGee’s Alice and then forming his own company. Subsequent titles to which his name has been attached, such as Scrapland, have not proven as successful as Alice, with his next game, due this year, being Bad Day L.A. in association with Enlight.