American McGee

Yes, that's his real name.

American James McGee is a game designer whose unique name often causes game publishers to require that it be on the front of the box. In explaining where his name came from, American has said that his mom was a hippie and was inspired by a woman she knew in college that named her child "America".

The Beginning

American McGee was a mechanic and a gaming enthusiast ever since he was 13. He moved to an apartment complex where he met John Carmack and the two became good friends. Couple of months later, Carmack offered McGee a job at id Software as a Tech Support and answering phone calls. He then moved on as a level designer after John Romero had been skipping work and no other level designers were at id Software at the time. American McGee, along Kevin Cloud and Tim Willits, was part of id Software's second generation and had worked on such games as Doom, Doom II, Quake and Quake II as level designer and programmer.

John Carmack wanted a level designer who experimented with his technology and could work late hours. John Romero had filled that role for as long as id existed. Sadly, the success of Doom had an impact on Romero's work. American became the "new Romero" around the office, and very soon became Carmack's best friend, because he shared both of Carmack's interests: cars and games. American was one of the few id Software members that opposed the firing of John Romero. But since he was not an owner, and just an employee, his voice was not heard. He soon began to despise John Carmack and the fact that he was the de facto ruler of the company. Everything had to work around Carmack's schedule and technology, and American didn't like that. He also felt that without Romero, the perfect harmony at id Software doesn't exist anymore. He was fired from id Software after the development on Quake II wrapped-up. That didn't stop American from pursuing better positions.

After id

In 1998, McGee joined Electronic Arts as the Creative Director and created his own game called American McGee's Alice, his most critically and commercially successful game to date. Despite having his name on the title, McGee thought it was "stupid" and actually fought against the marketing department because he felt the other developers who worked on the Alice deserved some credit as well and not just him. The game was developed by Rogue Entertainment, which the office was in the same building as id Software.

After finishing Alice, he left Electronic Arts in January 2002 and founded his company, The Mauretania Import Export Company in 2002, of which he was the president. The only game Mauretania ever made was Bad Day L.A., which received negative reviews upon release. It's unknown if Mauretania still exists or not. He also formed another game company called Vykarian in 2006 but the company only lasted for two years.

The Present

American McGee now lives in Shanghai, China where he established another new game development studio in August 2006 called Spicy Horse. He has noted that game development is an untapped market in China. Spicy Horse has released the not-so-well-received American McGee's Grimm series of episodic games. In the spring of 2009, EA announced that Spicy Horse will develop a sequel to American McGee's Alice. American has noted in his blog that Spicy Horse will handle the design aspect of the development, and the asset-creation part will be outsourced. Spicy Horse has also developed Dex IQ for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Name	Platforms	Developer
American McGee's Oz	XBOX, PC
American McGee's Grimm released on July 31, 2008	PC	Spicy Horse
American McGee Presents: Bad Day L.A. released on Sept. 6, 2006	PC	Enlight Software Ltd.
American McGee presents SCRAPLAND released on Nov. 4, 2004	PC, XBOX	Mercury Steam Entertainment S.L.
Ultimate Quake released on Sept. 27, 2001	PC	id Software
Timeline released on Nov. 12, 2000	PC	Timeline Computer Entertainment
American McGee's Alice released on Oct. 6, 2000	PC, MAC	Westlake Interactive, Rogue Entertainment
Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3 released on May 28, 1998	PC	7th Level, Inc.
Quake II released on Dec. 9, 1997	X360, N64, MAC, AMI, PS1, PC	id Software
DOOM 64 released on April 1, 1997	N64	Midway Games

Full Name:	American McGee
Gender:	Male
Birthday:	Dec. 13, 1972
Death:	n/a
Credited In:	20 games
1st Game Credit:	Doom
Currently Working For:	Spicy Horse
Hometown:
Country:
Website:	http://www.americanmcgee.com/
Email Address:
Aliases: