This may be the worst parenting decision in a long time. Blake Peeble’s parents let him drop out of school to pursue a career in guitar hero. I won’t summarize the whole article ran by The News & Observer, but here’s the gist of the thing:

Blake is your typical American middle child. He doesn’t really like school - a Christian Academy where his personal style is stifled and he is forced to obey ’silly’ rules. He is also shy and full of big dreams.

Blake happens to be good at Guitar Hero. Much better than your average joe, but not quite as good as the truly gifted. Blake has won a few tournaments and has snagged some chicken sandwhiches as prizes, but Blake is not on the level of  iamchris4life. Regardless, Blake bugs his parents until they let him drop out of school to pursue a career in guitar hero. The conditions of the agreement were Peeble was to be home schooled.

Not to be harsh, but that is downright idiotic. Not because he is bad at Guitar Hero, but because there is no future in GH. Half the fanboys in the audience want to kill me right now, so I’ll say it again. GH is doomed to eventually die. I’m not saying that rhythm games will eventually die, as I doubt they will. I’m just saying that the general trend in rhythm games does not purport a future in one subgenre.

For any remaining skeptics out there, look at

The History of Rhythm Gaming.

The first modern rhythm game released was PaRappa the Rapper, released for the original Playstation. It set the trend all other rhythm games would follow - you timed a button input to a cue on the screen set to music. More accurate presses with fewer missed cues would net you a higher score.

Bemani, arguably the king of 90’s rhythm gaming followed by releasing a slew of games, the most notable being Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania. DDR was the infamous ‘dance simulation’ where button presses were made by the feet. Beatmania was the ‘DJ simulation’ featuring 5 or 7 buttons and a turntable. Spinoffs followed, thus Pump it Up and In The Groove were born.

Dance games managed to corner the market until around 2003. From 2003-2005, we saw Amplitude, Karaoke Revolution, Donkey Konga, etc. No game could manage to corner the market the same way DDR did.

Then Guitar Hero was released. Something about making an ass of yourself while pretending to be a rockstar struck a serious chord with the American public. Instant success followed the release of the game. After a few sequels and a quibble between Activision and Harmonix, Rock Band was released.

Currently Rock Band and Guitar Hero dominate the music industry.

As you can see, there have been quite a few turnovers in the rhythm industry. Even the most popular series couldn’t stand the test of time. Very few people still compete in DDR or IIDX in comparison to the prime of either.

The Trend

There is a definite reason for all the turnovers. There is a trend in the rhythm game industry. A trend which DDR and Beatmania followed. Rock Band and Guitar Hero are headed in the same direction.

All rhythm games have a similar motivation to keep players playing: the desire execute more control over the input device. New players are hooked by the short learning curve from beginner to intermediate; advanced and elite players keep playing to ‘master’ the hardest songs. Songs which get harder and harder each time a new iteration of the game is released.

When a successful rhythm game released, a large number of people are hooked and a few rise to ‘elite’ status. The elite eventually master the hardest difficulty level. To prevent losing their elite players, the rhythm game must release harder and harder songs each sequel. Elite difficulty evolves, becoming harder and harder; intermediate players are left in the dust.

Eventually the difficulty level becomes too hard - the input device has been pushed to the absolute limit. A ceiling on human capacity is reached and only a select few can continue reaching the new difficulty levels.

Once the elite level reaches this phase, the intermediate level has become saturated. The stagnation of the intermediate level has left the intermediate players bored. This saturation coupled with the growing gap between intermediate and elite players eventually leads to the downfall of the game. Saturation leads to public boredom and the difficulty level prevents the majority of players from becoming elite.

DDR is the perfect example of this. A few years in, the hardest song was Max 300 with easy rhythm patterns and 555 steps. A few releases later, MaxX Unlimited, Legend of Max, and Max.(period) all increased the difficulty. Then they put all those songs together in a quartet. Finally, ITG introduced songs like Pandemonium with over 800 steps and complicated rhythm patterns. Shortly after Pandemonium, the dance simulation scene fell apart.

The elite difficulty had become too difficult for the average joe to aspire to and the intermediate difficulty had become saturated and thus stagnated. Everyone got sick of DDR and the industry moved on.

(Someone with a similar view on this topic can be read here)

The Problem

We have wandered extremely far from our original topic. To return to why Blake Peeble has no future in Guitar Hero: Guitar Hero will follow the same trend other rhythm games have. It may not be soon, but it will happen. It will eventually die. When it does, Peeble will be stuck with a completely useless skillset.

Rhythm game skillsets do not transfer between rhythm games. The same way instrument skillsets do not transfer from one instrument to another. Su re, music theory may be universal, but the skills required to play an instrument are almost entirely unique to a given instrument.

That is Peeble’s problem. What will he do in X years when Guitar Hero dies and he has no education, no life skills, and no qualifications for a decent job? He will have no future. Like a washed up child movie star, Peeble will have no where to go. Take a look at all the elite DDR players, very few besides iamchris4life managed to make the transition to Guitar Hero.

Basing your entire future off professional gaming is a ludicrous risk. Basing your entire future off rhythm gaming is another thing entirely. Even if you manage to get off the ground, your career will entirely end within the decade. Stay in school, everyone.