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In Defense of Rock Band
Q: So Why don't you just learn to play a real guitar and join a real band.
A: It's just a game. It's about having fun.
It's sole purpose is to have fun and entertain people. That is the most essential criteria of any form of mass entertainment. When people play Guitar Hero or Rock Band they know good and well that what they are doing is not equal to the activities that they are emulating. It's not a simulation but rather just a game that can get you to temperately suspend your disbelief slightly for a brief moment and get caught up into the act and have fun.
What is the point of playing Super Mario Bros.? When you can walk outside and smash a real turtle with your foot? I mean I can punch a brick wall with my fist and a bunch of coins and a magical fire flower is going to come out, right?
I've been playing Rock Band for almost a week now and I love it. I mostly sing vocals and it actually has made me a better singer and given me a better appreciation of what real musician goes through. In fact I believe that I would kick tail at Karaoke on any of the songs in Rock Band because I've sung them for hours on end.
I don't think it's right to compare Rock Band to playing in a real band. But it should be compared to playing some other video game where you move your thumbs around a controller. If you look at it from that perspective that it is one hell of an advancement.
When I was going through high school in the 1990's almost every guy at one point considered learning to play and a whole bunch of my friends learned to play guitar. Might I ad that they mostly played Nirvana covers. Video games have been simulating popular recreational activities such as sports and driving for the past three decades. People who play a driving game or a football game know that sitting on the couch using their thumbs to press buttons and move joysticks is not the same as driving a sports car or playing in the Super Bowl but that's not the point. It's about having fun.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero are pretty much an interactive online multiplayer karaoke game and it's a lot more fun that watching TV.
Jake at November 29, 2007 
Rants
Comments
I think some people who make such a comment are missing the point- it's a game. I'm sure GH or Rock Band could actually do the music industry a favor, since a lot of kids might enjoy the games so much that they decide to look into playing the real thing.
If a football game involved the actual mechanics of playing football, people would be complaining along the same lines. It's just complaining for the sake of complaining.
Posted by: HellblazerUSA at November 29, 2007 10:10 AM
