SXSW

'Guitar Hero' changes music industry

Video game and its rival, 'Rock Band,' spur sales of digital music, prompt players to create own tunes.

By Omar L. Gallaga
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 08, 2008

They're just plastic, guitar-shaped toys, really, but there's strength in numbers.

Millions of them lurk in living rooms, at store kiosks, on concert and karaoke stages.

In the "Guitar Hero" series of video games and their rival, "Rock Band," players use these controllers to play along with rock songs. Available for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation game consoles, they have become hugely successful, with total sales of 17.5 million copies worth more than $1.25 billion.

Now, after making their mark on gaming and spawning imitators and sequels, these titles are having a broad impact on the music industry that inspired them.

The games are spurring sales of digital music, a much-needed boost at a time when half of all teens say they don't buy music CDs. And there are signs that they've prompted some players to get musical instruction, or even to create their own music using the virtual instruments.

Moving music

Though "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" titles come loaded with songs by bands including The Rolling Stones, Metallica and Radiohead, players can buy additional downloadable songs to add to the games' basic setlists. "Rock Band" has sold more than 3 million copies of add-on songs online at about $1.99 per song. "Guitar Hero III" has sold about 5 million downloadable tracks at about $2.50 per song.

Many players who download songs for their video games also want a separate digital version of the music for their MP3 players, says Paul DeGooyer, a senior vice president at MTV Games, which makes the "Rock Band" game software.

When they make that second purchase through a service such as iTunes, sales of a track can "bump up substantially," he says. Players may dig deeper into an artist's catalog and buy more tracks at digital music stores.

Music publishers and artists get a cut of the download revenue.

DeGooyer said he thinks the explosion of downloads for these games is tied to the power of playing songs with friends and experiencing the vocal, drum or guitar parts first-hand.

Because major musical acts know that young players are being exposed to music they might not otherwise buy or listen to, the musicians are more willing to be involved with the games, says Kai Huang, president of RedOctane, which published the "Guitar Hero" games.

"Major recording artists are taking note and are much more interested in working with us," Huang said. The company's next project is "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith," due in June.

Huang, who will be speaking on a South by Southwest Interactive panel Saturday on the future of computer interfaces (like virtual guitars), says lesser-known artists like Austin bands Lions and The Sword are also being introduced to millions of players.

From screen to stagec

If there was concern that young people would spend all their time playing "Guitar Hero" instead of learning to play a real instrument, it may be assuaged by what's happening in the music instruction business.

Rather than railing against the faux guitar playing, musical instruction software like iPlayMusic and eMedia's long-running "Guitar Method" series is embracing the hype. Music education companies are hoping that music lovers will get tired of pretending to play guitar and will want to learn the real thing.

In December, music publisher Hal Leonard Corp. launched a Web site called GuitarInstructor.com. It calls the site "the next step for 'Guitar Hero' fanatics." The company is also publishing song books featuring tracks from each game and is offering tablatures (musical notation for guitars) and videos showing how to play those songs on its Web site at 99 cents and $1.99, respectively.

Jeff Schroedl, vide president of product development for Hal Leonard, says the site is benefiting from the renewed interest in playing music that the games have generated.

"There's so many more people exposed to guitar playing through the games," Schroedl said, "Between the song book and the Web site, we're trying to tap into that as best we can."

He says, however, that shredding to "Run to the Hills" in the expert mode of "Rock Band" won't make you a real guitar hero. "There's not an obvious segue between the two other than the fact that the songs are popular and that if they're hearing the guitar parts of the game, they're more apt to want to learn the songs on guitar."

Although Schroedl says interest in guitar playing has grown fastest, lessons for other instruments are also benefiting from the wave of music games. "The market is strong," he said. "More people are wanting to play music."

Dave Sebree, owner of the Austin School of Music, said he had 190 new students sign up for lessons in January and February, "It's crazy," he said, "we can't keep up with them all."

Sebree attributes the uptick to the two games and their popularity over the holidays. Sebree said there is some resistance in the music instruction industry, but it's not coming from him.

He thinks that as the instruments improve for these kinds of games, they'll more closely correlate to real music instruction. Sebree said that once instruments use strings and real frets, "The coordinative aspects of learning to play that game will spill over a lot better for learning how to play guitar or bass."

Hacking and shredding

Beyond a flood of download sales, what's the future of music video games?

Although MTV Music and RedOctane are tight-lipped on their plans for future game installments,the next logical step will be for each series to focus on more online collaboration and original composition. In "Rock Band," four people can play together online and form a virtual band, touring to animated arenas and uploading content to the game's official Web site.

Industry experts think it's only a matter of time before players will use all these toy guitars to create original music that can be uploaded and shared with the rest of the world. "Guitar Hero," meet YouTube.

Erik Brudvig, an editor who follows video games at gaming Web site IGN Xbox, said players are clamoring to upload their own music libraries into the games and play those songs.

At a recent Game Developers Conference, he said, MTV Games hinted at including that feature in future versions of "Rock Band." Brudvig noted, however, that game companies and the music industry stand to make more money by selling existing music.

One fan of the games isn't waiting for developers to introduce the ability to create new music with virtual guitars. Owen Grace, a San Francisco musician, formed a band called The Guitar Zeros that uses "Guitar Hero" instruments to perform live rock music on stage.

The guitars are hacked and connected to computers. And it's no novelty act: The Guitar Zeros have released an EP, played a half dozen gigs and put their original music online, where it has attracted national attention.

Grace, who has a graduate degree in music composition and a background in electrical engineering, is part of a growing community of hackers and "modders" who are creating new interfaces for the virtual instruments.

Grace's hack can do key changes, musical modulation and different musical modes. If you close your eyes and listen to songs like "El Guitarro Bizarro" and "Hotbird," the band's music doesn't sound much different than what other electronica-influenced indie acts might play. In fact, they sound a little like the Pixies.

When the band plays live, "The fun is most people don't know what we're going to be doing," Grace said, "They know the controller. Most people know the game. They ask, 'Are they gonna play the game up there?' "

Grace says despite their appearance, the guitars aren't toys. "They become instruments once you get them to make sound," he said, "we really are trying to make good music."

Unfortunately, the band didn't get accepted this year when it applied to the South by Southwest Music Festival.

This year, we'll have to settle for performers playing real guitars.

What's next

The next games in the 'Guitar Hero' series include 'Guitar Hero Mobile,' which was just released for some AT&T phones, and 'Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,' which will walk this way in June. An 'Air Guitar Rocker' was just released featuring 10 songs, a giant guitar pick and an amp. RedOctane just released a three-pack of songs from No Doubt's 'Tragic Kingdom' for 'Guitar Hero III.'

The team behind 'Rock Band' is focused on improving online play and adding lots of downloadable songs, including songs from Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and others. Full album releases are also in the works: Albums that are in the pipeline include Nirvana's 'Nevermind' and The Who's 'Who's Next.'

And other companies are introducing their own music-infused games. Disney Interactive just announced 'Ultimate Band,' a game that will allow players to jam together with their Nintendo Wii controllers and Nintendo DS game systems.