Turning Point
Guitar Hero was the turning point for western rhythm-action, incorporating the dominant music culture into the instinctive twitch-gaming principles of Frequency, Amplitude and Japanese rhythm gaming.
Guitar Hero gave western players something beyond the pattern-matching thrill – it referenced rock music’s aspirational quality and, above all, the wider region’s musical tastes.
Low Expectations
At first, few predicted that it would break out beyond a cult userbase, but sales grew and grew, driven largely by word of mouth.
“Normally, games have their big sales spike just before Christmas, and then sales steadily taper off thereafter,” says Rigopulos, who was arguably as surprised as anyone by the game’s early success.
“I had just learned that the opposite was happening with Guitar Hero – sales were continuing to grow every month."
"This prompted me one day to type ‘guitar hero’ into YouTube’s search field, which returned hundreds of videos that people had made of themselves playing the game. It was at that moment that I knew a phenomenon was starting to form.”
Passion and Commitment
It didn’t matter that Guitar Hero’s songs were cover versions.
It didn’t matter that the peripheral looked like an absurd toy next to Japan’s expensive arcade cabinets.
Harmonix’s obvious passion and commitment, apparent in everything from the art style to the loading screens, endeared it to every rock fan who laid eyes upon it.
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