American McGee has announced its retirement from the game industry, Game Developer reports. The reason for this is Electronic Arts’ rejected proposal for a third game in its “Alice” series.

“I have no other ideas or energy left to apply toward getting a new Alice game made. Nor do I have any interest in pursuing new game ideas within the context of the current environment for game development”

said McGee.

Electronic Arts owns the license for the Alice series, which consists of American McGee’s 2000 game Alice and its 2011 sequel Alice: Madness Returns. After the release of the latter version, the designer tried for more than a decade to realize a third title (known as Alice: Asylum), but without success.

According to McGee, the publisher has dropped Alice: Asylum due to “internal analysis of intellectual property, market conditions and production proposal details”.

“At this point, we have exhausted every option for getting a new Alice game made. With those answers from EA, there is no other way forward with the project”

he continued.

In 2012. McGee said he wanted the third game to be in the form of an episodic title, then known as Alice: Otherlands. Later, in 2017 and now called Asylum, he revealed that he had made a licensing proposal for EA to consider, which included a design plan and production plan drawn up in collaboration with Virtuous Games.

McGee will continue to focus on his family and his company Mysterious, which he founded with his wife. The company publishes artwork and clothing based on his work.