Category Archives: Shanghai

Alice Sequel, Shanghai, Spicy Horse

The Return of Alice

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Alice - Snail Fight

Alice Sequel – Snail Fight Image

Waking up in Shanghai this morning I’m greeted with a flood of emails, facebook messages, and phone calls. The world now knows what we here at Spicy Horse have known for some time: We’re making a sequel to “American McGee’s Alice” with Electronic Arts (EAP to be exact).

Not much can be said about the new project at this time. We are building it here in Shanghai. RJ Berg, who wrote the original and served as Executive Producer on the project, will reprise that role. The game will be delivered on PC, PS3, and 360. More details will come later of course. Until then, you can read the official press release. Or read EA’s official news blurb.

For me and the studio this obviously represents huge news. The original Alice was a good bit of fun – and aspects of the original are still quite compelling. The challenge for us – to build a great game, and a sequel worthy of the original – is real, but not daunting. Over the past few years we’ve assembled a really amazing team. I have full faith in their ability to create something amazing.

For me, this is a dream come true. The project will be fun, the studio can grow (and move – check out my flickr for pics of our new space), and we’ll eventually ship something unique. Lots of potential wrapped up in this news – I know I’ll be doing everything I can to make something great of it.

Check back here or in the forums for future updates. Can’t say I expect there to be much more news for a while – probably months. But if it’s allowed, I try to post some project updates, art, etc.

Also, a quick word of thanks to everyone at EA, EAP, CAA, and Weissman Wolff for everything they did to get this deal done.

And, we’re still looking for a few good people to join the team at Spicy Horse. Check out the hiring section for more info.

Shanghai, Spicy Horse

American in China

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Spicy Horse Logo

The Spicy Horse Logo

Brian Ashcroft from Kotaku has presented a really great interview with me and a few others from Spicy Horse. It details the history of my move to China, the formation of Spicy Horse, and our vision of the future of games in China. From the article,

It was 2007, and China was buzzing — with optimism and energy. “Chinese contemporary society is like a whirlwind,” says McGee’s business partner and art director, Ken Wong. “It seems to have changed in 10 years as much as America has in the past 40.” McGee and Wong, started boutique studio dubbed “Spicy Horse” or “Ma La Ma” in Chinese. Initially, they worked out of their homes on an island off the Hong Kong coast. “We moved into some really low-rent warehouse space in Shanghai upon our initial landing in the mainland,” says McGee. “From there we moved a few more times, ever growing the company, taking on more people, and evolving the culture.”

Be sure to check out the full article.

Many thanks to Brian for crafting such a cool article. And thanks to Kotaku readers for supporting interesting interviews like this 🙂

Featured, General, Grimm, Shanghai

Chinese Gaming Boom

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China is a fun place to be a gamer. If you aren’t buying 360 games on the street for 10RMB, you’re downloading them from P2P and sharing them with your buddies at work. We had to put a stop to that latter practice at the Spicy Horse offices – we found some of our guys were transferring 100s of Gb per day. Yikes. Regardless of how Chinese gamers get their hands on games, one thing is clear: Gaming is HUGE here.

As if the point needed further making, the following article posted on gamedaily.com today:

Niko Partners today revealed the results from a report on the Chinese video gaming industry. The 2008 Annual Review & Forecast Report on China’s Video Game Industry says that China’s 46 million gamers spent $1.7 billion on online games in 2007, an increase of 71 percent compared to 2006. Looking to the future, online revenue is expected to be $2.5 billion in 2008 and $6 billion in 2012, increasing by roughly a third every year.

“China’s spending on games is up thanks to their booming economy,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. “14 million hardcore Chinese gamers play online games more than 22 hours per week. They play online, LAN, and single-player offline PC games in China’s 185,000 Internet cafes and increasingly on their PCs at home, thanks to falling prices and higher disposable income.”

That’s a lot of hours spent playing games. The (un-)funny thing is how these stats only track (basically MMO) online play. Console and PC gaming are huge, but so far no one’s paying for it. The culture doesn’t support it – neither does the market. Even if you wanted to buy a legit game – you’d have a tough time finding one.

The situation is far from hopeless. World of Warcraft and online-only Chinese games are amazing examples of the market potential. Just don’t put something in a box and expect it to avoid being pirated. This is a country where you can buy fake everything. Soy sauce made from hair, bamboo shoots made from chopsticks, and fake boiled eggs made from… I don’t want to know what.

To honor Chinese gamers and their warrior-pirate ways, here’s some Chinese warriors from an upcoming episode of Grimm:

ChineseSoldiers

Ni hao! If I told you what episode of Grimm then I’d get a sock stuffed in my mouth. Just enjoy the image and don’t ask questions! Wo bu yao wen ti!

Grimm, Shanghai

Great Firewall of China

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If it seems things have been quiet around here there’s a reason. Well, a few actually. One, after returning from GDC I found myself swamped in catch-up work on Grimm and pre-production work on some new concepts. Two, the Chinese government decided to block access to Flickr via the “Great Firewall of China”. When I can’t see what I’m posting I get discouraged and don’t want to post in the first place. What’s up with that?

Well, to show my discontent with Chinese government policies regarding foreign operated photo sites, some mini-pirates:

Beach Boy (hearts) Beach Girl

As mean as they look I doubt they’ll do much to scare the Chinese government into changing their odd Internet blocking policies.

Bad Day LA, Grimm, Shanghai, Spicy Horse

Games For Windows – Podcast

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Games for Windows is hosting an audio interview they did with me during GDC:

Welcome to GFW Radio, the podcast homepage for Games for Windows: The Official Magazine. Here, through the glorious magic of the Internet, you can listen to the GFW editors and occasional guests pontificate and yammer about all sorts of PC game related issues. Plus they might even break down on-air, adding an element of tension to the whole affair. 

The Jeff, Shawn and the guys were kind enough to have me on so we could talk about things like Bad Day LA (what went wrong?!), doing business in China, Grimm, and my weird name. All in all, a really good “brodio”. You can find the podcast here. Â