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Marking 20 years after Guitar Hero first launched in North America, providing everyday gamers the tools to feel like a rock star. Not literally, though you'd be hard-pressed telling that anyone who has mastered Free Bird’s four-minute instrumental break in front of an enthusiastic crowd of friends.

Created by the developers, the game provided users with a plastic guitar peripheral to follow on-screen cues moving along the screen synchronized to the music. Each riff corresponded to particular chords, producing the sensation of a genuine performance.

The studio had already tried its hand in the music genre prior to teaming up with RedOctane, later purchased by the gaming giant during the mid-2000s. Together, they laid the groundwork for an unlikely billion-dollar franchise which made a significant impact on numerous musicians included, introducing decades-old bands to a new generation of gaming enthusiasts.

A former executive, ex-chief operating officer from the developer, recalls the early financial challenges of licensing the songs – despite the fact the first two games mostly used cover versions.

“We rerecorded all the music because the dollar figure was so high,” he explains. “Even with the publishing rights alone, it proved extremely difficult. We couldn’t get acts such as legendary groups – the publisher was operating on a shoestring budget, and our team was fairly certain the project would flop. But once the game took off, album purchases airtime were going up, everyone wanted to participate.”

He continues: “One of the amazing things was the number of parents got in touch and thanked us for exposing their kids to the music they loved. It evolved into an intergenerational phenomenon.”

Classic Rock Finds Younger Fans

Northern Irish group the Answer had their track in the 2008 release the popular installment. Lead musician Paul Mahon remembers how the series revived classic rock to the forefront: “The game provided a larger, new demographic. Typically such music was seen as outdated material, but then when it was included in the title young people discovered it, abruptly it was cool. This validated it, and got rid of the outdated tag. It gave all our music a new life.”

In 2008, the Answer’s debut album was still unreleased stateside, so Guitar Hero was a key medium for exposure for the band during their US tour supporting AC/DC. “Their crew were playing Never Too Late on the tour bus, and several knew us from Guitar Hero,” Mahon says.

Major Band Titles Enduring Influence

Rock’s biggest acts soon took advantage of the series’ popularity, including bands like Aerosmith, Metallica and others featuring in dedicated game editions that focused on each band’s catalogue and associated stories, imagery and rock’n’roll mythology. For example, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, reportedly to have made the group more money compared to their studio albums. It sold more than 500,000 copies upon release, and sales of their songs rose of up to 40% at a time as the industry was already collapsing.

Guitar Hero still motivates quick-handed dedication within the community. Recently, an online personality achieved an impressive attempt of DragonForce’s Through the Fire and Flames – a notoriously difficult power-metal song popularized through Guitar Hero – on Clone Hero, a freeware game with almost identical gameplay and extensive customisation options. This track is challenging enough on expert mode, let alone performed at double speed and without missing a single one of the thousands of cues. They stated requiring nine months to accomplish.

“The game offers a, fantasy thing. If you play Call of Duty, that doesn’t mean you ought to use a real gun and go to war,” notes musician Herman Li.

The band previously wrapped up a successful tour before their hit was featured in the third game, but Li says it turned them into widely recognized. “I remember our distributors calling to tell me that we were records were moving like crazy,” he says. “It exploded when we next toured, and we were playing right ahead of the headliners on the Mayhem festival.”

Indeed, DragonForce’s exposure from Guitar Hero was so immense that it risked eclipsing all other accomplishments. Recently, the track featured in promotional material for a major film. “In the past I felt differently, but now I accept it,” he admits. “If you only hear a single track, it’s totally cool – everyone’s got a unique path in music and I’m glad we played a role in fans' experiences”.

Enduring Impact of a Plastic Guitar

Top-tier marketing, whether it’s for automobiles, clothes or games, extends beyond mere transactions – it evokes a desire. Did Guitar Hero tap into that? “Precisely what we were aiming to achieve,” Dornbrook says. “The excitement of performing as a music icon on the stage. From day one, the co-founders felt that there’s an instinctive human desire to create songs, and they wanted to leverage innovation to enable everyone to participate”.

The majority installments came out over a mere five-year period from 2005 to 2010, featuring spin-offs such as the DJ version, including a turntable controller, and the band-focused game. Subsequently, corporate focus on peripherals died down, except for a brief comeback in 2015.

Titles like the fan project and newer releases have maintained the community active, and there’s expectations of something from the original publisher in development. Recently formed developers has entered production on their first rhythm-based title. The initial creators are participating as special advisers. Is the world ready to embrace a new entry following the classic?

“Our team believed such titles could be like Madden where you can update every year,” he remarks. “There’s so much fresh tracks that it could be evergreen, thus I remain optimistic. There’s no reason for it to continue with new generations.”