In 2005 I was honored with the opportunity to interview some of my favorite developers in the gaming community: Tom Hall, Michael Abrash and American McGee. I’m still waiting for John Carmack and John Romero, but in the meant time, I am going to finish my Quake Revisited series with my American McGee interview.
At the time of this interview, American McGee had just founded the independent game design and consulting firm The Mauretania Import Export Company (in 2010 TMIEC was dissolved and all intellectual property was transferred to American McGee’s new company, Spicy Horse). Renowned for his intricate and innovative level design in the FPS genre, McGee has held positions at id Software, where he worked on the Doom series of games, Quake and Quake II. He has worked at Electronic Arts on a wide range of titles and is also the creator of America McGee’s Alice, published by Electronic Arts.
Without further adieu, here is my interview:
Jay Bishop: Let’s start with the basics. Can you give me some background on The Mauretania Import Export Company and what, if anything, can you tell me about your current project(s)?
American McGee: TMIEC is an intellectual property development house that creates games, films, toys, books, and other forms of entertainment products and related merchandise. The business model is very similar to that of a traditional film development house. Concepts are created internally or licensed from outside sources (books, films, etc). We go through a very organic development process, which is heavily focused on character and story. Game design, toys, graphic novels, and other extensions flow naturally from that initial development and there is a lot of reuse of assets throughout the development process. For instance, sculptures of the characters are turned into toys while at the same time they help to sell the concept as a film. This helps us keep our costs down and leads to properties that are very tightly integrated in all forms. The simple version of all that biz-speak: we tell cool stories across a wide range of mediums!
Outside of the IP development aspect, TMIEC also offers consulting services to clients in various entertainment industries.
At the moment we’re working on a project called Bad Day LA which is being developed as a video game (Xbox and PC), a live action feature film, a graphic novel, and will have a branded line of merchandise (toys, clothing). Another major project currently in development is American McGee’s Oz, which is being turned into a live action feature film by Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Walt Disney Films, has an existing toy line, a new toy line in development, a finished novel waiting to be published, and a video game that will resume production as soon as the film gets a green-light. There are a number of similar projects in various stages of development that I can’t give any details on at this time.
Jay Bishop: Everybody envisions that whatever they are working on will be the next “killer app” or “killer game”, but did you really think that Quake would have such an impact? That there would be thousands of people waiting for even the littlest hint of information on the next bit of Quake news?
American McGee: Well, from within the walls of id we certainly felt that we were working on the next big thing. At that time Doom and Doom II were selling massively, the online following was growing day by day, and we were sitting on top of technology that no one else had even imagined. The general mood around the office was one of invincibility and mega-health. 🙂 We were hearing stories of people dropping out of school to play Doom, grown men leaving their families so they could spend more time playing Doom II. The games had an insane and insatiable fan base.
Jay Bishop: How much of your success either professionally or personally do you attribute to your involvement with Quake?
American McGee: Well, I know that I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for id Software, and specifically John Carmack, taking a chance on me all those years ago. I’ve often called id “boot camp for video games” because it taught me everything that I needed to know about making games and many lessons I needed to learn about life in general. The knowledge that was transferred to me in those years is still being applied to the projects I am working on today.
Jay Bishop: What are the three most significant industry-wise changes since the release of Quake, and what do you hope to see next?
American McGee: To be honest, I don’t get the feeling that all that much has changed. Sure, we’re pushing more polygons to the screen, we’re pumping our sound out through 5 or 6 speakers, staring at huge LCD monitors, and rocking dual processors and gigs of memory… but in terms of the games themselves, really, what’s changed so significantly. From a design perspective you could create Halo 2 using the Quake engine. Mobile technology? Ok, you can play Quake II standard games on a device you can fit in your pocket. But the game is still the same.
I think what the industry needs is a revolution in interface. We’re still using mouse and keyboard or joypads to interface with this entertainment. Honestly, and I know it sounds more than a little fantastic, but I expected by now that we would have more direct input and feedback from our games. Devices that subtly or overtly influenced our senses and read our impulses towards whatever game we’re playing. It seems that until we make that leap forward we’re going to be pushing the same buttons, which ultimately saddles us to the same designs.
Jay Bishop: Some gamers say that Quake III Arena wasn’t as good as Quake and Quake II. What do you see as Quake IV’s biggest challenges to win back the hearts of Quake fans?
American McGee: Well, first off, wasn’t Quake III a multiplayer only title? I think that the first thing that could be done is to get back to the single player game. Go back to the simple core of high speed action that made the originals so much fun.
Jay Bishop: I remember reading an interview with you where basically you said that independent game developers need to put money into cross marketing before designing a game. Do you feel that id Software should have put more money in to marketing the Quake series outside of the game itself? Even with Raven Software doing Quake IV and Splash Damage developing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, should id be marketing more Quake merchandise? Such as toys, comic books, posters or a movie?
American McGee: The point I was trying to make pertained to launching original game ideas, not continuation of franchise concepts. When you have an existing brand name like Quake then the difficulty of building an audience is greatly reduced. Cross-marketing when it comes to new IP helps to generating awareness across a wide range of outlets (comic book stores, toy stores, clothing stores, etc). This is “tipping point” marketing. Still, my opinion regarding Quake/Doom merchandise in general is that id could be doing a lot more to build around their franchises in the toy, comic, book, and general merchandise categories. They have a great brand, it should be given new life in as many forms as possible.
I would like to extend a big thank you to American McGee for sitting down and talking with me.
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