Guitar Hero fever - how does this affect us?

The game Guitar Hero is now one of the most popular games on the market. Not only is it "just a game", but people take it seriously, competing against other people in the world on the same basis as the FIFA-series and shooting games like Call of Duty.

It has even been a Guiness Record to be the best when it comes to Guitar Hero. With the guitar part, that is. I wonder if they take the drums, bass and the vocals that seriously later on.

Music is a part of everybody's lives, and with people that don't even know how to play the guitar, this is the opportunity to live out their musical side, pretending to be a rockstar and actually "play" the songs they love. But how does that effect people?

I know how to play guitar and I love it. I also think it's an awful lot of fun to play guitar hero as well, especially with friends, because it isn't that serious compared to playing the real instruments. Me and some of my buddies used to bunch up to play the real instruments - guitar, bass and drums - and try to create songs. We don't do that anymore now that we have bought the Guitar Hero World Tour game, which is kind of sad.

And what I'm about to say makes me die a bit inside - I don't get motivated by thinking that we should continue where we left with those real instruments. That's because it's so easy playing Guitar Hero with my friends and so much more fun.

Do not misunderstand me - as I've mentioned, I love playing the real guitar, and it is very fun when you make songs with your friend on the drums and such, but let me tell you this - since me and my buddy moved our equipment down to my basement, it hasn't been used that much. It has become overshadowed by Guitar Hero.

I certainly do not hope people, kids in particular, get the impression that playing guitar or the drums is easy when they play Guitar Hero. And if they suddenly decide they want to try to learn one of the mentioned instruments, they get dissapointed and unmotivated by the fact how much harder it is to learn than they thought.

On the other side; like every other video game, really - kids' reactions and eye to hand-coordination really gets hard training with this game. But that isn't much to brag about, really.

I doubt the Guitar Hero game will die out fast. In fact, I think it will grow, maybe to exaggurated and ironic dimensions, like having a band playing Guitar Hero on stage for an audience. Maybe a Guitar Hero-like karaoke bar, where every visitor is allowed to play their favourites for an audience.

Speaking of irony and Guitar Hero, and coming to an end to this blog, if you haven't seen the South Park episode about Guitar Hero, you really should. It has so many points and hits the nail about the ironic sides of this whole game vs. real instrument. Episode 13 season 11, entitled "Guitar queer-o".

You are going to laugh to death and think deeply about what you just saw at the same time!

Cheers,

Espen.