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Guitar Hero III the First Game to $1 Billion In Sales
The Opposable Thumbs blog reports that Guitar Hero III has reached a financial milestone, becoming the first individual video game to reach $1 billion in total sales. The number is even higher if you consider the rest of the franchise. In addition to helping drive the video game industry during tough economic times (much like the Wii), it's helping other industries as well: "... aside from the fact that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith had sold three times as many copies as the band's last album during their respective first weeks, musicians whose music is featured in the game has seen a rise in music sales to the tune of 15-843 percent." And CVG notes, "... two-thirds of non-musicians exposed to music games plan to start playing a real instrument in the next couple of years." Also, Rock Band creator Harmonix may be looking into a partnership with the record labels to sell music for use outside of the games.
"Guitar Hero III the First Game to $1 Billion In Sales"
from the this-sentence-no-verb dept.
I can definitely speak to Guitar Hero inspiring musicianship and boosting sales of real guitar equipment. Since playing Guitar Hero for the first time, less than a year ago, I have purchased 2 guitars, 2 amps, a plethora of accessories and quite a bit in instruction. I've been playing now for about 6 months and love every minute of it, even practice. Not as easy as Guitar Hero is (obviously), but so much more rewarding when you learn a new lick on a real guitar than when you perfect a song on GH, IMHO.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
Surely it's difficult to sell something that's twice the price (because of the required peripheral) of other games? I'll complain about $90 games but had no qualms about paying $180 for a game and two dorky plastic guitars. That's pretty impressive.
I think $1b is a milestone worth noting.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Everyone seems fond of pointing this out, along with listing a bunch of other games that sold more copies. The thing is, however, that that isn't the point. Cheaper games _should_ sell more because of where they hit the demand curve. The point is that despite requiring somewhat pricey peripherals it still sold enough copies to reach $1 billion, and that's impressive. It's even more so when you consider that many people are buying this over 2 other games (due to increased price); that's why using total revenue is actually a useful benchmark.
Finally, I would point out that since guitars from previous versions work with III, a large percentage of people only needed to buy the software, not the bundle. So if you don't believe the above, than realize that 60% or so of those sales are at the standard game price.
GH2 actually felt remotely akin to playing the guitar.
GH3 is endless fret-wankery.
The thing that annoys me most about GH3, is that as a guitarist I've had to deal with tendonitis and carpel tunnel syndrome on a couple of occasions before now. Those were as a result of playing too fast, without properly warming up.
GH3 at the higher levels requires far too much finger work to be safe imho. There's no real directions given in the game that you should warm up; not play for too long; and seek medical attention if you experience pains in your hands.
I wonder how many 12 year old kids will end up getting codine shots in a couple of years time.... just seems a little irresponsible to me.
As a real guitar player (playing for 16 years) I think it's great that the game inspires people to pick up the instrument (or any instrument for that matter) in the real world.
However, what I've noticed is that people assume because you can play real guitar, that you should RIP at Guitar Hero. In my case, nothing could be further from the truth. As a guitar player you're used to certain things. Throw in a game controller and it's mechanics and while at face value it looks similar, it just isn't.
I think a lot of people that pick up the guitar and try to learn on it (aside from the guy above who seems like he's enjoying it), will find that there's a VERY steep learning curve. It's hard, it takes a LOT of practice and perserverence. It's an instrument that you get "out" of it, what you put "into" it. Like anything else.
All I know is that I think a lot of these people that "plan" on trying to learn the instrument for real will be wholly disappointed at their progress when they're not playing Crazy Train or Sweet Child O' Mine after day 2.