No doubt you have heard of the video game Guitar Hero, published by Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI)? Or you may have heard about any of its sequels and competitors? After the massive release of the third incarnation of the game it gained a lot of buzz, and it brought in over $115 million during its first week of sales, moving 1.4 million copies across all platforms. Although not as impressive as the $170 million Halo 3 managed in September, this staggering figure is still impressive. It also begs the question of what a game like Guitar Hero can do not just for the video game industry, but also more importantly for the music industry.

Naturally, we could point to player's new familiarity with songs and hope that they will download the tracks or rush out and buy the CDs, but in the long term those effects are not as pivotal as other potential issues, namely players ability to actually play guitar. It seems to me, and I am sure this point has been brought up before, but if these players can only perform the instrument as a series of buttons that represent notes, what future does the music industry hold in terms of new artists further down the line, not to mention creativity?

These sentiments may be simplistic due to the rationale that there are many young and new guitarists not playing the video game, but the sales figures are staggering and I can guarantee you that it is not just gamers playing the controller-guitars. I for one am neither a gamer nor a guitar player, but I am enamored with both products, especially after I played the newest version with the Muse song "Knights of Cydonia." The difference for me seems to be the acknowledgment that I will never truly learn guitar, much less try to become famous for playing guitar.