Trent Reznor Interview

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Joystiq has a three page interview with Trent Reznor that is definitely worth the click to go check out. One of the things I really like about Trent Reznor is the fact that he is a tech savvy, no-BS kinda guy. Well, that and the fact he’s an old school gamer. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Again, it seems like games have gone from the golden age -- like Robotron, which was only a few kilobytes -- to the era of Wolfenstein and Doom, where a boutique shop of just ten guys could create an in-depth, quality game in six months to a year. Now we're at an era of needing hundreds of guys and millions of dollars and several years to compete with other A-list titles to attract the big publisher that wasn't as big of a deal years ago. Indie implies there's a great creative atmosphere, but that isn't necessarily true. The publisher equates to the record label and now you have an ecosystem where, if you want to compete with EA or Activision, you have to have a mainstream enough title, which turns into a blockbuster movie scenario.
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I can't see the rest of the article from work so I may have the context wrong, but that sounds like a definition of a maturing market to me. As technology advances the development requirements, costs and delivery times increase, and games that used to wow us are recycled content now.

There is also some (not enough!) support for indie developers--Steam and Nintendo are a couple I can think of, and I guess the iWhatever games count as well, or maybe PSP/DS games. Competing with EA requires a major publishing effort but that's not really indie territory IMO.

Agreed with the implication that big studio games stifle development and require mass market (read: lowest common denominator) content. On the other hand some emerging publishers in Europe have put out some great content that is at least fresh from an oversaturated, Americanized viewpoint. I can think of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Witcher, Gothic and EVE offhand.

I'd love to see some content from 'low budget' developers (> indie, < AAA). I read awhile back that they were enjoying some success but I'm not current on what's going on there.
 
checking in to read at home, stupid work sensor should be removed on fridays.
 
I think the thing that most people forget is 99.9% of indie stuff is total shit. Sure some gems pop up now and again but most of it just sucks.

I also think it is funny how he hates on Madden/Halo then jumps right on Nintendo's dick. I am pretty sure Nintendo invented franchise exploitation.
 
^^ no kidding, he does the work for the publishers he is complaining about:rolleyes:

trent has made some good music, he is a no-bs guy, but i find it weird how many people take his words as holy. actually, i dont find it weird- if you listen to his music extensively it likely means you have drugs in your system, so being led to believe things under the influence is a lot easier then someone normal speaking, like say rachel maddow or bill mahr.
 
spacetrader said:
^^ no kidding, he does the work for the publishers he is complaining about:rolleyes:

trent has made some good music, he is a no-bs guy, but i find it weird how many people take his words as holy. actually, i dont find it weird- if you listen to his music extensively it likely means you have drugs in your system, so being led to believe things under the influence is a lot easier then someone normal speaking, like say rachel maddow or bill mahr.
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Except for the mentioned example of the Quake soundtrack... ID was still only like 8-12 people at the time, and their publisher wasn't even all that huge themselves. Nothing like the hugeness of EA today and what Activision has grown into.
 
does anyone know the size of the development team behind Nintendo? mainly Mario and Zelda.

I bet it is smaller than many think.
 
Menelmarar said:
Except for the mentioned example of the Quake soundtrack... ID was still only like 8-12 people at the time, and their publisher wasn't even all that huge themselves.
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Not to mention the fact that id was an independent studio at the time and was largely self-financed. It wouldn't surprise me if id financed his work on Quake entirely on their own.
 
Trent Reznor is correct. He’s always been core gamer, and a musical prodigy, so his experiences should be worth listening to. He's trying to explain how games where made by a small and creative bunch, much like music at one point. Overtime, big conglomerates like EA and musical equivalents like Virgin/Epic records came in to dictate and push people to do what the money says to do. This is why [id] software made the decision to join up with ZeniMax. It's a private company and it protects them from the crap of today such as time limits/cuts and budget issues. They answer to nobody.

As noted, it’s not feasible to stay an independent developer either (as they were) because you just cannot compete. But, where the indy devs have a hard time getting any profit and buzz by being separate from huge developers, Trent has been fortunate because his methodology is making him even more profitable. He has had an easier time going independent and leaving Nothing Studios and record companies behind because he already had a devout following. Sadly, not so much with upcoming indy devs.
Thanks for the post Steve.
 
spacetrader said:
...if you listen to his music extensively it likely means you have drugs in your system...
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LOL... Whut?

I fail to see the correlation. DAMN what a logical leap you make... Or more to the point illogical leap.

Being a NIN fan doesn't mean that someone does drugs.

spacetrader said:
...someone normal speaking, like say rachel maddow or bill mahr...
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Define normal. There is no such thing as normal. Not you, not me and certainly not Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher.

I'm not that much of a fan of NIN. I liked Trent's early work, but then he kind of lost the point somewhere around The Downward Spiral. I do however think that he always brings in an interesting viewpoint to his interviews.
 
I don't do drugs, and I've seen NiN live at least 4 times.

Your theory otherwise is shit, simple as that sir.

You can take your troll, stroke his hair and wish for reality, but a lot of NiN fans are fans of the music, and the work he's put into it.

His music basically helped usher in a revitilization of a sector of music that went underground for a long time. He's a brilliant artist. Some works stand out more than others, but to discredit an entire fan base because of a stereotypically and wholely ignorant viewpoint is what you achieved.

Thats like saying all rap fans must be poor black drug dealers then right? When its been proven a majority of rap albums sell to suburban white kids. Your perceptions do not meet reality.
 
I love drugs and like NIN....never knew that I liked NIN only due to the drugs I better not quite or I will have to find new bands like Brittney Spears or Nsync or what ever the kids are listening too now days, I'd probably have to go to church too.
 
stevedave said:
I love drugs and like NIN....never knew that I liked NIN only due to the drugs I better not quite or I will have to find new bands like Brittney Spears or Nsync or what ever the kids are listening too now days, I'd probably have to go to church too.
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hahahaha, priceless
 
I was actually pretty upset and sad when they decided to not do Doom 3 because I loved Quake and it's music & sound effects. The atmosphere in that game was really well put together I thought: creepy, techy, hellish, etc... If they do anything more related to games, I'd be totally in.

I must admit, I've not liked much of the music since downward/fragile, but I'm glad he's still excited about doing new things and I'll always look forward to whatever he tries.
 
PyroHoltz said:
I liked how Trent Reznor and NIN did the audio track for the original QUAKE.
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THIS!

I have the entire Quake music on CD. I play it at several Halloween parties. It's fukin' fantastic!

It's the best music EVER for a game. Hands down.
 
Trent and Rob hit many points dead on the head. The Wii did as well as it did not because of motion controllers, but because of who could use motion controllers. My wife could barely use the gamecube controller (and that was designed so kids in single digit age can use them) loved the Wii because now she can beat both me and my step-son in mini-games on Mario Party.

And again, most games being pushed out the door are either re-hashed, re-sampled versions of other games or earlier games in that line. There hasn't been any ground breaking games since Doom3 introduced actually physics in the game (I wont credit HL2 for that, they just perfected it). I loved Doom3, and in fact I'm playing through it again just for the fun of it. I really hope he gets his game idea off the ground, I would love to see what he came up with.
 
101998 said:
I think the thing that most people forget is 99.9% of indie stuff is total shit. Sure some gems pop up now and again but most of it just sucks.
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Well, most of anything is shit. As far as I'm concerned most games on the shelf at your local Wal-Mart are dogshit, the same goes for the music.

Fact of the matter is both Indie music and games aren't constrained by marketing executives and corporate backers so they're able to do things that the "big boys" can't, and quite often that means making things that are more personal, more daring, and more artistic. For those of us who grew tired of being force-fed the same crap, repackaged and recycled over and over again, Indie music and games are a refreshing change of pace.

spacetrader said:
i dont find it weird- if you listen to his music extensively it likely means you have drugs in your system, so being led to believe things under the influence is a lot easier then someone normal speaking, like say rachel maddow or bill mahr.
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Uh, okay...

I post on a NIN messageboard, ETS, and I'm fairly certain the majority of fans there don't use drugs, so I think your a little off base here.

FuzzyPoncho said:
went downhill after the fragile :(
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Agreed.

TDS and The Fragile were the apex of his career. It's kind of sad, yet another artist that got off the drugs and then immediately started sucking. Now there's a drug related correlation I think we can safely make.

As for the article itself, I agree with pretty much both everything Rob and Trent have to say. I'm also not high at the moment, I just agree because they're talking sense.
 
Tanis143 said:
There hasn't been any ground breaking games since Doom3 introduced actually physics in the game (I wont credit HL2 for that, they just perfected it). I loved Doom3, and in fact I'm playing through it again just for the fun of it. I really hope he gets his game idea off the ground, I would love to see what he came up with.
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Doom3 & HL2 were released practically at the same time. And they were far from first.

Far Cry beat both.

UT2003, had very realistic physics ragdoll system, I think it was an early version of Havok. And that game is ooooold.
 
i stand corrected on the quake work, but damn you would think everyone took offense to be labeled drug users! in case youre wondering, im a user and i dont listen to NIN very much, so my self kills my theory anyway. its called exceptions but whatever, its more fun to take everything literally.
 
ManCannon said:
Uh, okay...

I post on a NIN messageboard, ETS, and I'm fairly certain the majority of fans there don't use drugs, so I think your a little off base here.
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7/10 people you see at his concerts are completely trashed, many on psychedelics. what the fuck else would you do at his shows? you gotta be thickheaded to think his music doesnt correlate with that shit.... its like saying "yeah i love pink floyd, but i hate marijuana"
 
spacetrader said:
7/10 people you see at his concerts are completely trashed, many on psychedelics. what the fuck else would you do at his shows? you gotta be thickheaded to think his music doesnt correlate with that shit.... its like saying "yeah i love pink floyd, but i hate marijuana"
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Uh...
 
spacetrader said:
7/10 people you see at his concerts are completely trashed, many on psychedelics. what the fuck else would you do at his shows? you gotta be thickheaded to think his music doesnt correlate with that shit.... its like saying "yeah i love pink floyd, but i hate marijuana"
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nope I don't and neither do any of my friends who are NIN fans, btw at a NIN show the last thing Id wanna be on is a psychedelic. That's like asking to star in Jacobs Ladder. Flaming Lips? sure. NIN? no.
 
you would rather see flaming lips on mushrooms and nin on sober? holy crap, there must be two nin bands!:eek:
 
honestly im so far off from what seems to be the consensus here its ridiculous. then again, most people think eminem's purple hills is the real version and purple pills was the funny remake....
 
Tanis143 said:
...since Doom3 introduced actually physics in the game (I wont credit HL2 for that, they just perfected it).
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Doom 3 was far from the first (nor was it very good, in my opinion... nothing seemed to move very realistically). Just to name one, Painkiller was before Doom 3, and its physics were on par with HL2 (even better in places, IMO).
 
spacetrader said:
7/10 people you see at his concerts are completely trashed, many on psychedelics.
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I've seen NIN twice with my brother, and neither time were him or myself high. I talked to quite to a few people at both shows and none of them seemed high either. Maybe there were a few stoned people, but I seriously doubt most of the crowd was, and I really, really doubt a large portion of them were on psychedelics. An extremely loud rock concert surrounded by people you don't know pushing and moshing seems like a one way ticket to a bad trip to me, unless you're a very experienced psychonaut. I've had people land on my head before while attending concerts, and that's something I would not want to happen while tripping balls, that's for sure.

Now, I'm sure many people were inebriated in some form, but I don't think the majority were and I certainly don't think that you have to be high to enjoy Nine Inch Nails as you seem to think. I'm not saying there's no correlation between drugs and rock music, that would be idiotic, but I don't think it's quite what you make it out to be, and I also don't think there's anything negative about getting high and listening to music as your first post seemed to imply.

spacetrader said:
what the fuck else would you do at his shows?
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Listen to the music? :p

piscian18 said:
at a NIN show the last thing Id wanna be on is a psychedelic. That's like asking to star in Jacobs Ladder. Flaming Lips? sure. NIN? no.
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Agreed.
 
spacetrader said:
^^ no kidding, he does the work for the publishers he is complaining about:rolleyes:

trent has made some good music, he is a no-bs guy, but i find it weird how many people take his words as holy. actually, i dont find it weird- if you listen to his music extensively it likely means you have drugs in your system, so being led to believe things under the influence is a lot easier then someone normal speaking, like say rachel maddow or bill mahr.
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Yes, I'm sure Rachael maddow or bill mahr know more about the gaming industry and its morphing into a content blanding machine than a successful musician who has worked in an industry that has grown into that and who has worked with the game industry and followed it for decades.
 
im as clean as it gets drue-wise and ive been listening to trent since i was 11. first song i ever heard was closer, and ive been hooked since... maybe trent is the drug? :-P
 
Kristofff said:
Yes, I'm sure Rachael maddow or bill mahr know more about the gaming industry and its morphing into a content blanding machine than a successful musician who has worked in an industry that has grown into that and who has worked with the game industry and followed it for decades.
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trents success is due to his creativity, not his business skills. in fact, most of his 'radical' ideas he has had about producing and promoting albums failed from a business standpoint, he admits that.
 
spacetrader said:
trents success is due to his creativity, not his business skills. in fact, most of his 'radical' ideas he has had about producing and promoting albums failed from a business standpoint, he admits that.
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Completely besides the point, but ok.
 
spacetrader said:
in fact, most of his 'radical' ideas he has had about producing and promoting albums failed from a business standpoint, he admits that.
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No, not really. He doesn't view the Saul Williams album as a failure, and he's been pretty vocal about his success with Ghosts I-IV.
 
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