Alice: Madness Returns creator and director American McGee says he “pasted dildos” on the head of a giant snail after publisher EA requested developer Spicy Horse Games “make things more sexy.”
The name behind the dark, video game twist on Alice in Wonderland shared behind-the-scenes details about how it came to be in a recent reply to a marketing video posted on X/Twitter. He admits there was “a fairly big disconnect” between his vision for the 2011 sequel and what the marketing team at EA wanted.
McGee says EA wanted to push Alice: Madness Returns to be a “Hard M title” that leaned more into gore and horror with a “psychotic” main character – but the requests didn’t stop there. When someone at the company requested the Shanghai-based Spicy Horse adjust how “sexy” the game was, McGee got creative.
It would be fair to say that there was a fairly big disconnect between the game I wanted to make and the game EA Marketing wanted me to make when we were developing Madness Returns.
The marketing team felt strongly that a Hard M title focused on gore, horror, and featuring a… https://t.co/HddXtHuWXz
— 🔪 American McGee 🖤 (@americanmcgee) April 23, 2026
“I did NOT want portray Alice as a psycho, cover her in blood, or ‘make things more sexy’ (yes, that was a request),” he said. “Famously, I pasted dildos onto the head of a giant snail in response to the ‘sexy’ request and emailed that to the Marketing team.”
With a laughing-crying face emoji, he added, “They stopped making those requests.”
McGee clarified that he feels he was able to deny requests like this because Alice: Madness Returns was funded by a Los Angeles bank, not by EA. The nature of the deal meant that Spicy Horse maintained complete control of the project as long as it stuck to the development schedule and didn’t push the budget.
It was successful up to the end of development, when the team felt it needed “another 30-60 days for polishing.” McGee said EA’s refusal to extend the deadline was “probably a bit out of spite,” resulting in a slightly less polished launch with little interference from the publisher.
“We made history in relation to all this,” he added. “Madness Returns wasn’t just the first AAA game fully developed by a Chinese team. It was also the first ever game to be bond financed in China. We were also the first team ever to tell EA [go f**k yourself] and (kinda) get away with it.”
Alice: Madness Returns launched in June 2011 for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Although reception from fans and critics wasn’t the strongest upon its release (we gave it a 6.5/10), its grim fairytale style helped it find an audience, landing it as a cult classic in the years since. McGee has attempted to make Alice 3 in the past, and there was even once a TV show in the works, but the franchise otherwise remains dormant.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
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