The first time I saw 'Minecraft,' people wanted to have 8-bit style video game music. But I wanted to go around that and make something organic and partly electronic, partly acoustic, and see if that would be interesting.
With 'Minecraft,' I've started creating serene ambiance music. As the game went on to become famous, people started identifying me as the ambient music person, which I never actually thought I was.
I've been playing video games since I was 10 years old, and I think it's important to play games if you want to design them yourself.
I'm not a huge movie buff and I don't watch that much television, but I've spent most of my life playing video games of one kind or another.
When I'm playing 'Rock Band,' I'm like, 'Man, someday, later on in life when I'm a famous rock star...' Which gets a little harder to convince myself of as I reach middle age, but it still happens a lot.
The first mp3 I downloaded, which I guess was illegal, was a symphonic rendering of the Super Mario Brothers 1-1 theme song. It was great. I was like, 'This is blowing MIDI files out of the water. This is the future, right here.'
I guess many game music fans prefer original soundtrack albums.
Being the composer of 'Minecraft' is basically like imagining the distance between earth and moon.
My knowledge of video games ends with Nintendo 'Mario Bros.'
For some young people, their first experience ever hearing punk rock music was playing the Green Bay Packers on 'Madden'.
Last year in Germany at a town hall in Leipzig there was a game music concert played by the orchestra and some of the Final Fantasy scores were played. This year there is another concert scheduled in the same location, for game music.
I go online, and I love watching heavy metal bands and guitar players play heavy metal versions of the 'Zelda' theme, and people do all the 'Zelda' music, which is one of my favorite soundtracks.
I love making soundtracks for video games, because it is a completely different challenge, and I get to do something different.
I don't know anyone who would be exclusively working on game music, per se.
I love playing videogames.
When you talk about the Final Fantasy series, the series started selling better after 7, and that was the base idea for the center of the set list for the LA concert.
I grew up playing 'Mortal Kombat' as a kid. I was always a fan of the video game. Saw the movies as a kid as well.
Well, I've been a fan of videogames all my life.
A friend of mine called and said they're interested in having you do a song for the new Pokemon. All my kids are grown up, so I'd heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was.
I've got songs that sample 'Mario Bros.,' 'Charlie Brown,' the 'Rugrats' theme, the music that plays when you turn on a Gamecube.
However in countries outside of Japan I think game music is still a potential growth market that has not yet developed to the extent that we are seeing in Japan.
It feels like there's something for everyone in video games. It's not just a toy for a certain age group. It's steeped in the culture now.
When I invite people over to my apartment, they usually don't like it because the music I play confuses the crap out of them - I'm making people listen to the 'Final Fantasy' soundtrack, and they're like, 'Why is this happening? Let's just leave and find somebody who wants us to have fun and not teach us about something.'
Game music has a purpose and it does incorporate sound effects.
From what I've heard, videogame soundtracks - obviously, there's less budget and all of that - it just seems like game soundtracks are farmed out among friends. And it seems like more of an afterthought. It's a videogame. It's much more background.
