Guitar Based Video Games A Double Edged Sword

By Greg Kerekes

Guitar Hero, a video game utilizing a guitar shaped controller which is popular among college students, is responsible for not only increasing record sales, but also increasing video games sales, although it may be hurting guitar sales.

Ryan McLaughlin, a resident of New York City and a guitar player for six years, thinks that Guitar Hero is fine as long as its players realize that it’s just a game.

“I actually used to work in a guitar shop and we got a lot of kids coming in that wanted to learn guitar because of it,” McLaughlin said. “The problem was that the only songs they knew were from the game and those songs which they wanted to learn were way too hard. So we'd start them on easier songs and they'd get bored and quit after three months.”

Released in 2005, Guitar Hero is a North American recreation of a Japanese game called GuitarFreaks. Since its release it has become widely popular among college students because of its large soundtrack of popular music.

“It has the songs I like,” Dan Newton, a student at Stonehill College, said. “The songs I like usually include copious guitar. An example would be Metallica. I have also learned that there were songs that I didn’t know about, which I had heard on the radio, and found in Guitar Hero and had fun playing.”

DragonForce, a speed metal band, became widely popular after a song of theirs was featured in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Digital sales of their song Through the Fire and Flames which was included in the game rose from 2,000 to 37,825 in a week.

“Guitar Hero introduced me to DragonForce,” Mike Dally, another student at Stonehill College, said. “Since then I’ve bought their albums and seen them in concert.”
According to the Music Trades Online Annual Census of the Music Industries, guitar sales in 2006, the year following Guitar Hero’s release, dropped 9.6 percent.

Jason Chapentier, an employee of Guitar Center in Warwick, RI, said that most newcomers choose to play Guitar Hero instead of a real guitar.

“They’re just wasting their time with [Guitar Hero],” Charpentier said. “You can’t do anything besides what the game tells you to do, so there’s no actual talent needed.”

Courtney Earle, also a student at Stonehill College and Guitar Hero player, said that she plays Guitar Hero because she can’t play the real guitar.

“I think it’s the fact that people can’t play the real guitar that they play Guitar Hero,” Earle said.
Anthony Noto, a resident of New York City and a guitar player for six and a half months, does not think that players of Guitar Hero are wasting their time not learning how to play a real guitar.

“I don’t think they’re wasting their time because it’s fun, plus it’s a lot cheaper,” Noto said.
Earle agrees with Noto that Guitar Hero players are not wasting their time.

“It’s the same as playing other video games,” Earle said. “If they weren’t playing that they’d just play another game.”

A guitar player for four years and resident of Warwick, RI, Robert Edwards, said that skill in Guitar Hero does not equate to skill on a real guitar.

“I don’t think [Guitar Hero] makes it easier,” Edwards said. “It just improves your coordination.”

Both McLaughlin and Edwards agree that Guitar Hero is good because it promotes an interest in the instrument.

“I'm all for getting people interested in the instrument,” McLaughlin said. “That's how new music is made. The problems always arise when people play the game and expect the instrument to be just as easy.”

Edwards’s support of Guitar Hero is a bit more Machiavellian.

“It’s a great thing,” Edwards said. “Anything that takes away from the rap community.”