DangerStepp
Member
Very cool interview.
Thanks, OP.
Thanks, OP.
KevinCow said:Wasn't Reznor a boss in Mario World?
Me said:If it doesn't involve him and three Triceratops on a hackneyed ferris wheel over molten lava I'm not interested.
ThePeacemaker02 said:A Digg Dialogg came out today with Trent Reznor and it turns out he pitched a game.
I'll let him tell the story though
http://revision3.com/diggdialogg/trentreznor/#seek=1595:1807
SpacLock said:Trent Reznor is the man! My friend has one of his dad's heaters in his garage which makes it 10 times cooler in there.
birdman said:He's better return that shit. Sounds like a faulty heater.
EviLore said:Listened to the whole thing. Trent is smart, interesting, and totally in touch with reality. Respect +100.
jenov4 said:I still have my Quake CD with the NIN soundtrack. Actually, I think that was one of the first CD rom based games I bought. Trent rules.
Year Zero is a pretty amazing concept album. It's not something I could listen to that often though.DiatribeEQ said:Now if Trent could only start making good music again. Everything from PHM to The Fragile was awesome. From there on out? Not so much. So, if he could pitch a game that was as great to play as say anything from the span of music I mentioned that I liked? Oh man, that'd be a great game.
DiatribeEQ said:Now if Trent could only start making good music again. Everything from PHM to The Fragile was awesome. From there on out? Not so much. So, if he could pitch a game that was as great to play as say anything from the span of music I mentioned that I liked? Oh man, that'd be a great game.
DiatribeEQ said:Now if Trent could only start making good music again. Everything from PHM to The Fragile was awesome. From there on out? Not so much. So, if he could pitch a game that was as great to play as say anything from the span of music I mentioned that I liked? Oh man, that'd be a great game.
gantz85 said:More than N'Gai Croal, IMO, who sounds intelligent but I almost feel like he's bullshitting like someone would do while in college.
If Reznor appeared on a gaming podcast I would lap it all up.
Trent: Rob and I have some things on the side that we've been working on and one of the things we've been talking about doing is publishing or developing video games. A few years ago we took that idea to a few of the main publishers, Midway, Activision, etc. And as first time people in a pitch meeting, it was kind of depressing. Depressing to see that the people in control of those studios and publishers are much the same as the people sitting at record companies.
In a record company, they aren't musicians or people who love music, they're people who want to sell plastic discs. They think they have a formula where if they can eliminate the artist from that equation, even better. You see that in the case of the Pussycat Dolls and some of the other fabricated crap that's out there. What we tended to notice in the video game meetings was that it didn't seem that there were gamers there. It's business guys who want to turn the company into a profit making machine. They look at it in terms of numbers, like a Hollywood studio. If it costs "X" amount to make a game, to compete, then it has to be a proven franchise or it has to be similar enough to something they know is going to sell. They don't want to take the risk.
Trent: Me and Rob are both big Nintendo fans for a number of reasons. Nintendo approaches gaming from a prospective where Super Mario Bros. is still a classic and doesn't look dated. Look at any game on the PlayStation 1 that tries to exceed past the terrible 3D graphics, with their look alike, sound alike franchise attempts.
With Nintendo, there's this kind of aesthetic that they bring to their in-house games that makes them feel like art. Where they aren't trying to be something else, where they have their own place and are just what they are. I've talked with Rob about this, about why that kind of game is cool, has a timelessness to it and isn't trying to be more than what it is. If I were going to make a video game today I would not put in rendered, 3D characters that try to look human. You know, where when they talk their lips are out of sync and have this weird aliased thing going on. There's that Shadow Complex game, which does looks cool. Every cut scene has the eyes rendered pretty well, but there's that terrible voice acting and the characters look like Fembots.
Trent: The strength of motion controllers will be if there's a killer app that makes a person go, "Fuck yeah, all right!" That's always what it comes down to. I'm glad there's innovation in that field and maybe something great will come of it, but I'm not holding my breath that the technology will redefine gaming.
Rob: There's a difference between praising the Wii as an important step and saying that motion controls are the greatest thing in the world. What was great about the Wii is that it proved that they could do something that goes back to having just pure fun, that opens up the doors to people like my mom playing. This is something the fanboys cry about, "But who cares?" Those casual gamers aren't playing Halo, they aren't bothering you in your deathmatches. The Wii is just opening up the medium to so many more people using simple, pure fun. Something that original arcade games were all about. That doesn't mean it's the future necessarily, it just means that Nintendo found a tool to open the door to others and it could go a million different ways from there.
:lolTrent said:"Madden: This Year."
rpmurphy said:Trent along with Rob Sheridan had a huge interview with Joystiq, talking about the video game industry, his game development ambitions, his thoughts on gaming, etc.: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/24/interview-trent-reznor/
A lot of great stuff to read.
Here are some good quotes, but I recommend reading the whole interview:
Fuck me sideways. I don't know why this argument is so rare.Trent: The strength of motion controllers will be if there's a killer app that makes a person go, "Fuck yeah, all right!" That's always what it comes down to. I'm glad there's innovation in that field and maybe something great will come of it, but I'm not holding my breath that the technology will redefine gaming.
Rob: There's a difference between praising the Wii as an important step and saying that motion controls are the greatest thing in the world. What was great about the Wii is that it proved that they could do something that goes back to having just pure fun, that opens up the doors to people like my mom playing. This is something the fanboys cry about, "But who cares?" Those casual gamers aren't playing Halo, they aren't bothering you in your deathmatches. The Wii is just opening up the medium to so many more people using simple, pure fun. Something that original arcade games were all about. That doesn't mean it's the future necessarily, it just means that Nintendo found a tool to open the door to others and it could go a million different ways from there.
rpmurphy said:
In a record company, they aren't musicians or people who love music, they're people who want to sell plastic discs. They think they have a formula where if they can eliminate the artist from that equation, even better. You see that in the case of the Pussycat Dolls and some of the other fabricated crap that's out there. Depressing to see that the people in control of those studios and publishers are much the same as the people sitting at record companies.
More Fun To Compute said:Great comment. What gets me about gaming communities, from people on forums to the professional websites, is how many people seem to rate games by how serious and businessman like companies are. Like, they need games to be a serious industry like razor blades and napalm manufacturing more than they want to play and enjoy games. Maybe they have mortgages to pay off or something but that sort of attitude is not very attractive.
Sorry.Ranger X said:This was thread worthy. Sad to be just a bump.
.
OK, much respect to Reznor --he's talented and has all kinds of good music to his name-- but selling a lot of plastic discs is the difference between playing at dirty little clubs in Cleveland and going on a world tour. If he isn't a master of niche marketing, I don't know who is.In a record company, they aren't musicians or people who love music, they're people who want to sell plastic discs. They think they have a formula where if they can eliminate the artist from that equation, even better. You see that in the case of the Pussycat Dolls and some of the other fabricated crap that's out there. Depressing to see that the people in control of those studios and publishers are much the same as the people sitting at record companies.
Trent: Me and Rob are both big Nintendo fans for a number of reasons. Nintendo approaches gaming from a prospective where Super Mario Bros. is still a classic and doesn't look dated. Look at any game on the PlayStation 1 that tries to exceed past the terrible 3D graphics, with their look alike, sound alike franchise attempts.
With Nintendo, there's this kind of aesthetic that they bring to their in-house games that makes them feel like art. Where they aren't trying to be something else, where they have their own place and are just what they are. I've talked with Rob about this, about why that kind of game is cool, has a timelessness to it and isn't trying to be more than what it is. If I were going to make a video game today I would not put in rendered, 3D characters that try to look human. You know, where when they talk their lips are out of sync and have this weird aliased thing going on. There's that Shadow Complex game, which does looks cool. Every cut scene has the eyes rendered pretty well, but there's that terrible voice acting and the characters look like Fembots.
Rob: The characters usually look better stylized in a way where it lends itself to the media as opposed to trying to look like the latest 3D-animated movie, which can create things super-realistically. When it's done only half way ... well, it's just kind of weird.
Trent: How that applies to Nintendo, and I'm not saying they haven't fucked up a few times too, but they have this sense of here's this game, we're aware of the limitations, but we're going to make the game great with taste and integrity. Being honest, I'm not a huge fan of Sony. Their entire strategy behind the PlayStation is to focus on gaming as an experience last and getting a Blu-ray player in your living room comes first. Now, three years later they're trying to release a motion controller that's a little bit better than the Wii's.
DeuceMojo said:OK, much respect to Reznor --he's talented and has all kinds of good music to his name-- but selling a lot of plastic discs is the difference between playing at dirty little clubs in Cleveland and going on a world tour. If he isn't a master of niche marketing, I don't know who is.
The industry definitely needs auteurs, but wasn't there a lot of thought and art infused into Call of Duty 4? OK, so it sold millions of copies and it's sometimes unpopular to say you love it, but the majority of gamers love it. Does that make Activision bad somehow, for marketing a good game from a good developer and reaping a huge profit? Aren't the real "independents" the people that can make their art in whatever fashion they choose because they have the money to do it?
G.O.O. said:Fuck me sideways. I don't know why this argument is so rare.
DeuceMojo said:OK, much respect to Reznor --he's talented and has all kinds of good music to his name-- but selling a lot of plastic discs is the difference between playing at dirty little clubs in Cleveland and going on a world tour. If he isn't a master of niche marketing, I don't know who is.
The industry definitely needs auteurs, but wasn't there a lot of thought and art infused into Call of Duty 4? OK, so it sold millions of copies and it's sometimes unpopular to say you love it, but the majority of gamers love it. Does that make Activision bad somehow, for marketing a good game from a good developer and reaping a huge profit? Aren't the real "independents" the people that can make their art in whatever fashion they choose because they have the money to do it?
Trent's responses or the interview as a whole? We talking about the video linked in the first post? I felt like I was watching the Chris Farley Show. "Yeah. Wolf 3D was cool!"batbeg said:Great interview. The guys absolutely seem to have a sensibility I can relate to, and I'll be there to support them if they ever do break into the game industry.
FartOfWar said:Trent's responses or the interview as a whole? We talking about the video linked in the first post? I felt like I was watching the Chris Farley Show. "Yeah. Wolf 3D was cool!"
I think generally people just don't like businesspeople. They're kinda on the "Lawyer List".Monroeski said:You know, I totally understand why people don't like "soulless suits" running game companies, but I don't understand why people don't get why that happens or feel like it's an amazing travesty.
I mean, really, when I used to work at a hotel it wasn't because I have a burning desire to provide lodging to business travellers, it was because the hours worked for me and I require money to survive. When my friends in college went off to work for Sprint or Nextel it wasn't because their passion in life is cell phone providers, it's because those companies were hiring MIS majors.
Many, I might even say most, people work at companies whose product or service they are not totally gung-ho for. CEOs, CFOs, and executives in general are quite often where they are because they are good businessmen. Their passion is managing companies, working out financing deals, the prestige of having your company's name on a blockbuster product, etc. If they do it in an industry they love, that's great, but if it's somewhere else, so be it. I would bet most people in this thread don't work for companies they totally love and support, either. Hell, judging from a lot of the threads I see most people around here hate their jobs and the company they work for and wish they were doing something else.
I love when the head of the company making games is a gamer, too. It is great when you know they are committed from the top down to creating a game that people will love and that they themselves want to play. However, that doesn't mean I think we should demonize other people when their priorities are different. I mean, hell, they're still selling a shitload of copies of their games, derivative overpriced crap or not, so obviously they're providing a lot of people out there with what they really want to buy.