Rocksmith and the State of Music Gaming

It wasn’t that long ago that Guitar Hero was the hottest thing since sliced bread. People of all walks of life were playing it to death, and it helped keep the music business alive for a while. Before Guitar Hero died out, the bands that were able to capitalize on it, like Metallica and Aerosmith, made a ton of money in royalties in an age where people stopped paying for music a long time ago.

When the Guitar Hero phenom collapsed, it also signaled the end of music gaming, but Rocksmith 2014 just got a pretty strong review in the NY Daily News, and it’s certainly the next step in the evolution of where Guitar Hero was headed. So many musicians grumbled that it’s a lot harder to learn an actual instrument than play a video game, and nobody will argue that, but now with Rocksmith you can actually learn how to play guitar at the same time. 

As the Daily News reports, the game’s session mode “is tremendously satisfying,” the “riff repeater helps you learn,” and you should definitely get this game if you want to learn how to be a guitar player. “It’s a music teacher disguised as a game, and despite some imperfections, it was a surprisingly effective guitar career kickstarter.”

This review also tells us that this sequel to Rocksmith “is a lot more polished and a little bit more innovative. Suddenly, there’s no better way to get started playing the guitar for newbies.” 

So indeed, it is a lot harder to learn how to play an instrument than master a video game, and we’re curious to see how many guitar wizards could have developed from the Guitar Hero years. We figured there has to be some bands that have formed by now that were first inspired by Guitar Hero, and we’re also waiting to see the first guitar god who learned his trade through Rocksmith sometime in the near future.