The weather that November night wasn’t prohibitively cold - one of the few benefits to living in Texas. For the curious, the others are Tex-Mex and inordinately large belt buckles. Once I’d removed the guitar and game from the oversized Guitar Hero box, I opened the balcony sliding door of my college dorm room. The weather provided me with a convenient excuse; I really wanted to advertise my new plastic axe. As the game booted, I wondered if Guitar Hero would finally crack the Western music game market. I’d played Konami’s Guitar Freaks before, so holding embarrassing, chintzy plastic wasn’t a new experience. Licensed music was the only real difference between the two, and would ultimately distinguish Guitar Hero to the Western market, but would it be enough? In retrospect, I’d answered my own question within minutes, as after creating my band I scrolled directly to Smoke on the Water and experienced the Next Big Thing.

The first of many plastic peripherals to clutter my apartment. Those were simpler times.

Guitar Hero and eventually Rock Band went on to answer that question in ways more substantial than one college-age nerd’s song selections. The two properties are arguably gaming’s biggest, earning more than $3 billion between them. Konami’s music series had always done well enough in Japan, but it relied on original music created by in-house musicians. Sure, the occasional licensed track or cover would trickle along, but these were viewed more as pathetic marketing ploys than legitimate choices when scrolling the song list. A player earned scoffs and eye rolls from the arcade’s quarter line if they picked anything by a real band over an intentionally manic, complex Konami original.

As it turns out, licensed music holds far more weight than challenging note charts to the general public. The reason is obvious, at least when considering those that spend less than two hours a day on message boards. Video games sell a fantasy, and hammering out that awesome riff in Smoke on the Water is much more ubiquitous than thrashing out overtly complex yet unknown melodies.Guitar Hero provided a new way for people to interact with their favorite tunes, supplying them with an anchor of familiarity along with a promise of vicarious digital fulfillment.