Skill Diversification: The Secret Weapon of American McGee
summary
Starts at id answering phones then contributes levels and QuakeC scripts to Doom and Quake, collaborates with Nine Inch Nails on sound, gets fired after four years and later leads a Shanghai studio that runs ten years, pays US wages to small teams (30 vs competitors’ 300), ships Grim and Alice Madness Returns with ~80 internal and ~300 external contractors, enforces no crunch via half‑hour scheduling, uses Patreon for preproduction (would take ~30 years to fully fund a Madness‑level game), and runs the Pirate Jam on sailboats with up to 24 people.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Start
- 3:59Your First Memory of Games
- 22:58Alice in Wonderland
- 27:29Alice and Wonderland
- 29:19.Role in Alice
- 52:06Crowd Design
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