Today, Activision/Blizzard cut the life support of the ‘Guitar Hero’ franchise (and the mediocre ‘True Crime’ series) due a decline in the genre of people playing Simon while pretending they’re musicians. While I understand that these can be fun party games in the same way karaoke, quarters, or fisting is… there’s a percentage of a generation and a half of people who at least partially consider this as something more than just goofing around with colors and timing while listening to tunes both old and new. Plenty of people see it as just a party game but the cult of Guitar Hero and its imitators simply got too big too fast. I have no doubt someone will snap up the rights or outcry will cause it to come back in a few years… but while my hate of these games is a bit irrational so too is the belief that a whole new wave of virtuoso musicians or music scholars is going to be born out of this. Or the belief that it has nothing to do with musical instruments. You get from it what you bring to it, and though I’ve had arguments with folks about the product and its relationship to actual music I’ve also had to deal with people saying that Guitar Hero is a form of music. It doesn’t really matter. It had a good run.
Plus, if Guitar Hero created one new Aerosmith fan it’s a public enemy.
The next wave of brilliant musicians and scholars? Those people have instant access to every song in the universe. They have instant access to the entire history of music from Neanderthal farts to Lady Gaga (which is a short trip). Shit, Pandora Music has more power than any video game ever could. They can download a program and if they have some patience and creativity can have professional grade work in no time.
Activision/Blizzard is feeling the economy. Bottom line. And people are using peripherals like the Kinect, Playstation Move, and [hopefully] fisting more. Evolution. Not better, not worse, but new. Or rather, Wii for people with pubic hair. Just as long as Activision leaves Bungie alone I’m fine with whatever changes they make.
Maybe it’s time to put World of Warcraft out to pasture. Bet you some of those folks would find sunlight pretty cool…
I have a teenage cousin who learned about Dio, Ozzy, Stevie Ray Vaughn and countless other bands solely because of Guitar Hero/Rock Band. He picked up guitar because of these games.
Listening to Pandora isn’t the same as actually experiencing each instrument of a song, seeing how they’re constructed and appreciating the skill that goes into each song. I really don’t think you realize how much good these games did to introduce folks to music they never would’ve experienced otherwise.
Alex, Tommy Lee said something along those lines, only about his son. While I myself have given up on instrument games (after “Rock Band 2″, a game I haven’t touched in forever, nor did I buy the plastic instruments for), I guess I’m thankful that people are more interested in bands they never heard of as opposed to just ingesting the bullshit radio stations want them to hear. I, myself, for example, never would have discovered Maximo Park if it weren’t for “Rock Band”. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Plus, my fiance gets hot watching me play the guitar, air, plastic, or otherwise.
Please tell me you actually know how to play guitar.
I do, actually. Not very well, mind you, just enough to make me look like a motherfucking ROCK GOD to my fiance.
Everytime I finish a Rock Band 3 song, I’m told how I rate compared to “Jugpuncher’s Band”. Keep hope alive, sir!
Guitar Hero really got a lot of non-gamers I know that are just fans of music to start playing video games, which is a big win for any game. While it was a lot of fun for a while, it just became overkill with the various sequels, spin-offs, and imitators. The more these games moved towards ACTUAL guitar (or other instrument) playing and having to play as a band, the more people probably thought “Well, if I’m going to play guitar, I’ll buy a real one, not spend the same money on this plastic shit”. I used to play it a lot in the middle of the night with my roommate after we’d get home from work (“OK, just ONE more song…”), but once you started needing a group the size of P-Funk to get the most out of your game, it got a lot less convenient…
Who wants to play Kinect Guitar Hero? I’d still rather play on a cheap, fake, plastic guitar instead of playing cheap, fake, plastic air guitar. People have a funny idea of what being grown up is.
Nick Nunziata, noted outdoorsman, judges you for what you enjoy. Remember kids, it ain’t cool unless a forty year old deems it so.
You know that episode of Friends where Chandler spends a whole day playing Ms. Pac-Man and fucks his hand up? Yeah, that was me after a single half hour of Guitar Hero. These days I stick to fisting.
Thank god Guitar Hero is finally done! Hated those games.
I think Guitar Hero’s great. Sure, I may not me a snobbish guitar-wielding hipster musician, but then again not everyone is.
These games were and are a great way for my wife and I to enjoy some tunes while at the same time having a fun time playing a competitive game. Or if we have friends over, they still love to throw down with some dual-axing from time to time.
I don’t see how vilifying someone for enjoying a perfectly innocent game (and great music) is reasonable at all. Sure, I can’t play the guitar… SO FUCKING WHAT?! I can’t perform heart surgery either; so does it make me a douchebag for not being able to operate on someone at the drop of a hat??
Not directed at Nick, btw, just the general hate by some.
Yeah, that reminds me, you never hear the same kind of snobbish attitude towards other genres. Race car drivers don’t shit on people for playing driving games instead of REALLY going out there and racing at 200 mph. Athletes don’t jump all over you because you’re playing Madden instead of REALLY going out and playing football. Soldiers don’t call you a pussy for playing Call of Duty instead of REALLY going out there and shooting someone in the face. I could go on and on, but yeah, I don’t know what makes Guitar Hero and the like so deserving of criticism from people that actually play music (or more likely, people that THINK they can play music).
Not only do your examples ring true, but all the professionals you mentioned also enjoy playing the games themselves.
Nick’s argument is that some people act like Guitar Hero is more than a game. You don’t hear people saying Call of Duty makes you a soldier or that driving games make you a NASCAR driver.
Other games get the same treatment though, where people think that they’re more than just a game. Again, look at Madden or Call of Duty, where such a big deal is made about the release of each installment year after year. Jesus, I can’t believe I forgot World of Warcraft. People eat, sleep, and breathe that shit. Guitar Hero, like these other franchises, is/was a phenomenon, and even if none of them are my thing, I’m not going to call everyone an asshole for getting super excited by it. As far the “playing THIS doesn’t make you THAT” debate goes, I’m sure that lots of soldiers, pilots, etc. started off as gamers, and even if they weren’t doing it right then, it may have put them on that course, like Guitar Hero getting some people to pick up actual instruments. Wasn’t that the joke 20 years ago during the first Gulf War, that we had the best fighter pilots because our kids had been playing Nintendo their whole lives? Hell, the ARMY uses a video game as a recruitment tool, though they fail to tell you that out of the 300 ways to be a soldier, you’re probably more likely to become a forklift operator or dorm manager than a super elite special forces commando. That wouldn’t make for a very fun game though.