Industry veteran American McGee has said that he is leaving game development after his attempt to make a new entry in the Alice series fell apart.

In a post on his Patreon, he wrote that Electronic Arts – which owns the Alice games IP – was not interested in licensing, funding or selling a new entry in the franchise. McGee previously crowdsourced a Design Bible for this title, named Alice: Asylum, which he had then taken to EA.

"On the question of funding, they have ultimately decided to pass on the project based on an internal analysis of the IP, market conditions, and details of the production proposal," McGee wrote.

"On the question of licensing, they replied that Alice is an important part of EA’s overall game catalog, and selling or licensing it isn’t something they’re prepared to do right now.

"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. As such, we will be hibernating this Patreon page and related pre-production activities. The content will remain in place but we'll no longer present options for funding Alice: Asylum efforts via this (or any other) platform.

"Alice: Asylum is at an end."