McGee Would Have Cancelled OZombie If It Reached Its Goal

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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McGee Would Have Cancelled OZombie If It Reached Its Goal


OZombie lead American McGee says he needed $1.5 million to make it work.

American McGee, the most American American, recently pulled the plug on his ambitious Internode [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125970-American-McGee-Cancels-His-OZombie-Kickstarter] that he would have cancelled the Kickstarter even if it had reached its $950,000 funding goal, claiming that his "vision" of the game needed at least $1.5 million to work anyway.

"Let me put it to you this way, with OZombie we set that goal at $900,000 but I know that we actually needed $1.5 million to do that game."

So why didn't the man just ask for $1.5 million from the get-go? "If I'd come out and said, 'I need $1.5 million' from the beginning, we would have been told that we were being crazy - we were already told we were crazy! - and yet, with the success that inXile and Double Fine have had, where they're asked for half a million and they get three, there is something at work there." Unfortunately for McGee, rather than asking for half a million and getting three, he asked for almost a million and only got $141,513.

McGee, who has seen failure through Kickstarter with OZombie, but also success with Alice: Otherlands [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spicyhorse/alice-otherlands], doesn't think that crowdfunding is going to replace traditional publishers any time soon. "I think Kickstarter's great, I love it, but at the same time I think there are things that traditional investment or traditional publisher funding can do that Kickstarter and other crowdsource platforms cannot do, and in fact may never be able to do."

Source: Internode [http://games.on.net/2013/08/american-mcgee-on-ozombie-i-would-have-cancelled-it-even-if-it-reached-the-goal/]

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Lazy Kitty

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May 1, 2009
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These may be stupid questions, but...
What is OZombie?
Why haven't I heard about it before?
And why does that "OZombie Kickstarter" link lead back to this very article instead of to the kickstarter page?

EDIT: Oh, I see, different article. Sorry about that.
 

schtingah

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Jun 1, 2011
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OZombie was a game McGee wanted to make set in the world of Oz, but its a very unfortunate name.

The reason they don't link to the kickstarter is because it's been cancelled, so it doesn't exist any more.
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
 

dumbseizure

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Mar 15, 2009
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MrBaskerville said:
I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
Wizard of Oz that plays like singstar?
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Rex Dark said:
These may be stupid questions, but...
What is OZombie?
Why haven't I heard about it before?
And why does that "OZombie Kickstarter" link lead back to this very article instead of to the kickstarter page?
Hi thanks! The OZombie Kickstarter link actually leads to a different article, this one here. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125970-American-McGee-Cancels-His-OZombie-Kickstarter] It may have confused you because it uses the same images.

Nonetheless, here is a link [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spicyhorse/ozombie/posts/538981] to the Kickstarter page!
 

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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MrBaskerville said:
I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
Hi there! Despite the title, there aren't actual "zombies" in the game. What the game really was, was a world of political conformity and soulless day-to-day routines of the inhabitants of Oz. A political satire on how civilian life is for most people today, and it would have been really interesting to see Dorothy inspire the people and bring various factions under her control to fight the oncoming war.

It's a shame that it had such an unfortunate title that drove people away
 

Lazy Kitty

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May 1, 2009
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Steven Bogos said:
Rex Dark said:
These may be stupid questions, but...
What is OZombie?
Why haven't I heard about it before?
And why does that "OZombie Kickstarter" link lead back to this very article instead of to the kickstarter page?
Hi thanks! The OZombie Kickstarter link actually leads to a different article, this one here. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125970-American-McGee-Cancels-His-OZombie-Kickstarter] It may have confused you because it uses the same images.

Nonetheless, here is a link [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spicyhorse/ozombie/posts/538981] to the Kickstarter page!
You're right. Sorry about that, I better put on my contacts before I ask more stupid questions.
 

Infernal Lawyer

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Jan 28, 2013
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Oh come guys, noone? Fine, I'll be the first to say it...

Yeah dude, we TOTALLY believe that you would have cancelled it anyway even if you got the minimum kickstart. Not some lame-ass excuse at all.

And before you say reply guys, regardless about driving people away from your kickstarter, I think it's ridiculous to set the 'minimum' kickstarter lower than your actual minimum goal. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if the minimum isn't reached, everyone gets their money back anyway, so it's not like there's any risk in investing in something that doesn't reach its goal
 

Lieju

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Jan 4, 2009
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Isn't this scamming?

You're asking for an amount of money that isn't enough to deliver what you're promising.
 

lancar

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Aug 11, 2009
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Or maybe, just maybe, people are simply burned out on the whole zombie fad by now and want to throw their money at something that sounds more original at first glance.

Just a thought.
 

shirkbot

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Apr 15, 2013
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I'm kind of concerned with this mentality of asking for less than what you actually need. You require a given sum of money to release a given product, so, just ask for it. We're not going to fault you for honesty. Heck, do with the guys that made Skullgirls did and release a detailed list of where the money will be going. We'll appreciate your openness and honesty, and we might even express that with monies.
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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dumbseizure said:
MrBaskerville said:
I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
Wizard of Oz that plays like singstar?
No no, a platformer with sing and dance routines :D.
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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MrBaskerville said:
I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
Bollywood all up in that *****!
 

infinity_turtles

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Apr 17, 2010
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The low amount could be a good reason why it didn't generate much interest. I know I didn't back it because it seemed a very low amount for what an actual studio would need. And a lot of the high buzz-generating internet personalities have made comments about not trusting low-balled kickstarters, so that choice might have kept them from hyping this thing.
 

Colt47

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Oct 31, 2012
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Kickstarter is good for games that people want, but publishers don't want to touch for some reason. Space flight combat sims are one such area, and if we ever got Japanese kickstarters I'm sure we'd see Rockman Legends and a whole slew of other forgotten properties like Breath of Fire.

Well, the spiritual successors of famous series, anyway.
 

EHKOS

Madness to my Methods
Feb 28, 2010
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Too bad, I actually like the mans work. Madness Returns was really good, and I enjoyed it for the gameplay as well as the psychological aspect. Plus it had a decent twist at the ending....well an ok twist....
 

Amir Kondori

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Apr 11, 2013
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I think that there are a lot fewer people today who want to fund "Move to china, hire cheap Chinese development team" McGeee than there were before that. Also before he defended the Chinese government on censorship. I think a fair number of gamers lost some respect for him after that.
 

Vivi22

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Aug 22, 2010
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Lieju said:
Isn't this scamming?

You're asking for an amount of money that isn't enough to deliver what you're promising.
Certainly feels like it. They're asking for a specific amount, promising whatever rewards for people who back it, but even if it reaches the goal they're just gonna pull the rug out from under you? Maybe not scamming since he wasn't going to take the money if they didn't get enough, but definitely deliberately misleading. It would not have been a good thing for his reputation, or kickstarters if that had happened.
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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Steven Bogos said:
MrBaskerville said:
I´m still wondering, why would you put zombies in the Wizard of OZ? Personally i´d prefer a regular OZ game, no horror, no zombies, just The Wizard of Oz. Maybe with a lot of singing? :p
Hi there! Despite the title, there aren't actual "zombies" in the game. What the game really was, was a world of political conformity and soulless day-to-day routines of the inhabitants of Oz. A political satire on how civilian life is for most people today, and it would have been really interesting to see Dorothy inspire the people and bring various factions under her control to fight the oncoming war.

It's a shame that it had such an unfortunate title that drove people away
Wait wait wait...there weren't going to be any zombies in the game? That's news to me. Granted, I wasn't interested in the project to begin with, but I thought the original pitch was that something happened to Scarecrow and he raised a bunch of zombies to threaten Oz. Was that not the case? I mean yeah, we all saw Dawn of the Dead and get the symbolism of why the zombies are wandering around at the mall anyways: we're all zombies, just soulless automatons going through the motions of life without having any real rhyme or reason...it's just instinct. Did that story really need to be retold through Oz though? I dunno, maybe...but still, I could have sworn when I first heard about this game it was supposed to be ACTUAL zombies.

If it wasn't, then that makes the title of the project even more tragic of a fail.