Musicians angry over the existence of Guitar Hero and Rock Band often feel better about themselves by claiming that fans of the games should “learn to play a real instrument.” However, Harmonix has said that those musicians are missing the point of the games, and possess a narrow perspective.
“I think they’re missing the point. I think that they don’t understand why it’s a phenomenon,” explains John Drake. “From my perspective, anything that gets kids interested in music and gets kids playing music in their house that isn’t an MP3 they stole off the Internet, is a good thing.
“Anything that’s making money for music and making music relevant to kids again is a good thing. I think they think that we prefer people playing plastic guitars over real guitars, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. We would love nothing more than for every kid that buys Beatles: Rock Band in September to immediately ask for a real guitar for Christmas because they’re inspired.”
Personally, I feel that a guitarist telling someone to learn a real guitar instead of playing Rock Band is akin to a soldier telling someone to shoot real people instead of play an FPS. Some people just don’t want to do the real thing, and that’s why videogames are so popular.
It always amuses me when real musicians act threatened by a piece of plastic with squeaky buttons on it. Until people can take turns playing a real guitar when drunk and still have fun, music games have their definite place.
