DJ Hero, Scratch: first guitars, now DJing and turntablism.

Its been tough to ignore the monumental rise of the Guitar Hero franchise and its various copycat incarnations (Rock Band etc). As befits these Fear & Loathing times for the music industry, games have now proven a better earner for some bands than the albums their tracks were licensed from. Aerosmith are one fine example, notoriously making more money from their branded Guitar Hero game than they ever made from any of their albums to date. Not bad when you consider their multi-platinum-selling status with records like Pump.

The guitar format was always going to wear out though, and so inevitably games developers have turned their attention to DJs, DJing and turntables in particular (though “Laptop DJ” is one franchise I’d love to see launch… and fail). Enter two new titles: DJ Hero and Scratch. DJ Hero, as the name implies, is from Activision, makers of the Guitar Hero game. Scratch, meanwhile, is being developed by a far smaller company, but is noteworthy for tablism fans for one simple reason: Mixmaster Mike is helping develop it. In fact, it seems Scratch was such a strong product that Activision tried to buy the company just to remove the competition it might present.

What I’m curious to know though, is what you readers all think about this. Personally,I think its easy to shoot these things down as exploitative and undermining an artform that takes years of dedication. Hell, I play guitar and I’m no fan of Guitar Hero in many respects. However there is a flipside to this, in that these Guitar Hero-type games have seen a good upsurge in kids learning guitar – no bad thing in my view. Could DJ Hero and Scratch do the same? Pure exploitation or is there really no such thing as bad publicity – even for artforms??

Comments below please!

Further reading: ‘DJ Hero’ Vs. ‘Scratch’ As Music Game-Makers Turn To Turntables