Trent Reznor’s post Nine Inch Nails plans had been kept safely in the vault, but small bits of info have been dropping of late (by Reznor himself) and now we’re starting to get a picture of what’s to come: another Ghosts record is on the horizon, a Gary Numan collaboration is in the works, there’s a possible tv show, and now a video game could be on the way.
The video game idea has apparently been knocking around for a while, as Reznor revealed in an interview with Joystiq that he and Rob Sheridan had actually engaged in unsuccessful meetings with major gaming publishers, including Midway and Activision, a few years back. “And as first time people in a pitch meeting, it was kind of depressing,” he said. “Depressing to see that the people in control of those studios and publishers are much the same as the people sitting at record companies.”
Now that they are free from record labels and a touring schedule, Reznor and Sheridan are planning to put out their own “dumb and obvious” game without the backing of a major corporation.
That’s not to say Reznor doesn’t enjoy popular, corporate-backed video games. “I dabble around in them and I actually think those games are fun,” Reznor said of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. “As a gamer, it’s interesting, fun and surprisingly rewarding when you get it right. As a musician, who’s watching the record industry look at these games as a type of salvation… it’s laughable. That’s just desperate people in the record business thinking. ‘Man, we finally have a way to turn people onto music.’”
For more on how Reznor would beat Coldplay at a game of Rock Band “if it descended into physical violence” and how playing Wii Tennis is like “one of those moments when you hear a great song or watch a great movie and get chills,” go thataway.