American McGee Cancels His OZombie Kickstarter

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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American McGee Cancels His OZombie Kickstarter


Only $141,513 of OZombie's requested $950,000 funding goal had been reached when McGee pulled the plug.

Things were looking bad for fans of American "Yes, that's my actual name" McGee's OZombie Kickstarter when he announced he was having licensing issues with its proposed bonus Alice film [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125766-American-McGee-Removing-Alice-Film-From-OZombie-Kickstarter]. It now seems that this issue, combined with a general lack of interest (Only $141,513 of OZombie's requested $950,000 funding goal has been reached) has caused McGee to pull the plug on the whole project.

"The Oz campaign has to end. There are two realities driving the decision," wrote McGee on the game's Kickstarter website [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spicyhorse/ozombie/posts/538981]. "First, we're facing a challenge with the Alice film rights ... Second, we wouldn't consider shutting down the Oz campaign if it were trending towards success. As it is, we've reached 15% of our goal with 20 days left in the campaign."

"For Oz, we can always launch another campaign in the future. On the other hand, the Alice film rights are only within reach during a rapidly closing window of opportunity. We'll sacrifice Oz today in order to have a real chance with Alice."

McGee says that projections predicted the Kickstarter would have only reached 30% of its funding goal by the end of its funding period. He says the team considered an IndieGoGo campaign in addition to the Kickstarter, but didn't want to be accused of "creating confusion."

He sincerely appreciate all of the support and feedback fans have provided. McGee did not offer any information about when or if backers will be able to request refunds.

McGee had previously said that "Publishers are'nt the spawn of Satan" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125674-American-McGee-on-Publishers-News-Flash-Things-Cost-Money] in a blog post addressing some Kickstarter projects seeking alternate sources of income.

Source: Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spicyhorse/ozombie/posts/538981]

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knight steel

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Jul 6, 2009
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Will the people who contributed to the project be able to get their money back considering the fact that what they paid for has been cancelled?
 

Weresquirrel

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knight steel said:
Will the people who contributed to the project be able to get their money back considering the fact that what they paid for has been cancelled?
It's my understanding that Kickstarter only gives the money over when the threshold is reached, so the contributors should get their money back.
 

BrotherRool

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Oct 31, 2008
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I have only now realised that OZombie is a Wizard of Oz project (I've only seen headlines and articles like this one). The Osama Bin Laden zombie film (Osombie) completely through me off. No wonder the screenshots never made any sense (Or American McGee's involvement) =D

knight steel said:
Will the people who contributed to the project be able to get their money back considering the fact that what they paid for has been cancelled?
Do you mean people who paid through paypal etc? I hope that would be arrangeable, Kickstarter doesn't even collect money until after the project has been successfully funded and ended it's run, so at least that's not a problem.
 

Zombie_Moogle

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Desert Punk said:
McGee is kind of a douche anyway.

If publishers arent the devil McGee why dont you go to one of them to get your lil game made?
Thank you. Glad I'm not the only one that can't stand him
 

wulfgar_red

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he can only blame himself. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122879-American-McGee-Wants-Upset-SimCity-Gamers-to-Relax
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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BrotherRool said:
I have only now realised that OZombie is a Wizard of Oz project (I've only seen headlines and articles like this one). The Osama Bin Laden zombie film (Osombie) completely through me off. No wonder the screenshots never made any sense (Or American McGee's involvement) =D
There was actually an article a week or two ago about how he was going to be changing the name of the project, apparently for that very reason. :p

Beyond that, I'm really not too surprised that this one was a dud. I mean a zombie apocalypse in Oz? That's a semi-original idea while at the same time being not very original at all. Personally I think that the zombie fetish is starting to wane. It's still pretty strong, but it seems like the trend is just starting to lose its luster.
 

Amaror

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Well, if you outright make the statement that the kickstarter goal wont be enough to actually fund a project like this, i am not surprised when people don't want to give you money.
Besides the game didn't look that interesting to begin with.
 

BrotherRool

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RJ 17 said:
Beyond that, I'm really not too surprised that this one was a dud. I mean a zombie apocalypse in Oz? That's a semi-original idea while at the same time being not very original at all. Personally I think that the zombie fetish is starting to wane. It's still pretty strong, but it seems like the trend is just starting to lose its luster.
I agree it's semi-original, that is, the half about a videogame set in Oz is pretty fresh. But zombies are getting really played out now. People were beginning to complain about peak zombie a couple of years ago and I'm pretty sure there's not really anyone left who gets excited that they're going to add zombies to X. It's helped that some of the zombie games that came out recently were really good, but even then lots of people were saying 'it's good even though'. I think we've seen all there is to see with zombies for a while now. Romantic zombies, nazi zombies, fungi zombies, flower zombies, modern military shooter zombies, flower parodying modern military shooter zombies, president zombies, terrorist zombies, japanese mafia zombies, stripper zombies, superhero fighting zombies, actually vampires but abused by the source material until they're pretty much zombies zombies (darn you I Am Legend).

Yeah we're pretty much done. And a lot of that stuff is like 5 years old now
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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knight steel said:
Will the people who contributed to the project be able to get their money back considering the fact that what they paid for has been cancelled?
Money from a Kickstarter is only charged if the goal is met, so in cases like this they never spent it.

Desert Punk said:
McGee is kind of a douche anyway.

If publishers arent the devil McGee why dont you go to one of them to get your lil game made?
He's kind of a douche in the way water is kind of wet.

Publishers probably aren't dumb enough to back it in the first place, which is why he came to us, hoping we were.

wulfgar_red said:
he can only blame himself. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122879-American-McGee-Wants-Upset-SimCity-Gamers-to-Relax
Wow. American McGee telling people to relax while comparing it to WW3. I'm not sure where to begin.
 

CriticalMiss

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Jan 18, 2013
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I'm not suprised this happened. Between the arsehole who says he doesn't think it's bad to take money from publishers whilst running a Kickstarter and the kind of boring sounding game, I don't think it stood much of a chance. At least he can go to his beloved EA and get them to publish the game for him whilst taking the IP off his hands like Alice. Bwahaha!
 

Username Redacted

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Desert Punk said:
McGee is kind of a douche anyway.

If publishers arent the devil McGee why dont you go to one of them to get your lil game made?
He's kind of a douche in the way water is kind of wet.

Publishers probably aren't dumb enough to back it in the first place, which is why he came to us, hoping we were.

wulfgar_red said:
he can only blame himself. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122879-American-McGee-Wants-Upset-SimCity-Gamers-to-Relax
Wow. American McGee telling people to relax while comparing it to WW3. I'm not sure where to begin.
So, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is that CliffyB may have finally found his hetero life-mate in American McGee.
 

SecondPrize

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Well, I'm sure Mr. McGee can find someone else's intellectual property to trot out for sale.
 

Terramax

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Desert Punk said:
McGee is kind of a douche anyway.

If publishers arent the devil McGee why dont you go to one of them to get your lil game made?
Yeah, this is my thought. Perhaps, if the guy spent less time opening his trap, spouting his unpopular opinions, and spent more time actually making at least ONE classic game in his lifetime, then maybe more would feel the need to back his project.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Jan 20, 2010
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This guys is a moron.

He was actually surprised that people wouldn't fund his game without gameplay being shown. He thought that because Massive Chalice succeeded with no gameplay videos.
 

Something Amyss

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Dec 3, 2008
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ThingWhatSqueaks said:
So, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is that CliffyB may have finally found his hetero life-mate in American McGee.
Hetero? If it's possible, even the remotest possibility for a person to spontaneously turn gay, there are wedding bells in their future....

>.>
 

Zombie_Moogle

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Dec 25, 2008
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Res Plus said:
Zombie_Moogle said:
Desert Punk said:
McGee is kind of a douche anyway.

If publishers arent the devil McGee why dont you go to one of them to get your lil game made?
Thank you. Glad I'm not the only one that can't stand him
Ahhh, brilliant, I thought it was just me too. The bloke comes across as a self absorbed chump.
I wonder why it is that Phil Fish (Fez creator/outspoken industry critic) catches endless flack for being abrasive, even when everyone seems to agree with what he's saying, & McGee never seems to attract such ire despite being many times more... well, douchy
 

Username Redacted

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Zachary Amaranth said:
ThingWhatSqueaks said:
So, if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is that CliffyB may have finally found his hetero life-mate in American McGee.
Hetero? If it's possible, even the remotest possibility for a person to spontaneously turn gay, there are wedding bells in their future....

>.>
I guess the real question then, is what intellectually bankrupt game they'll co-develop on their honeymoon.