A lot of popular musicians have spoken out against games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, saying that they rather have kids play “real” instruments. Harmonix’s John Drake views these games as a possibly gateway for players to get into playing actual instruments in an interview with CVG he said:

“I think they’re missing the point. I think that they don’t understand why it’s a phenomenon. From my perspective, anything that gets kids interested in music and gets kids playing music in their house that isn’t an MP3 they stole off the internet, is a good thing.

Anything that’s making money for music and making music relevant to kids again is a good thing. I think they think that we prefer people playing plastic guitars over real guitars, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

We would love nothing more than for every kid that buys Beatles: Rock Band in September to immediately ask for a real guitar for Christmas because they’re inspired.”

What do you think? Isn’t it a wonderful things that music games can encourage players to learn how to play real instruments? Even if that doesn’t happen, isn’t it great that players get another way to enjoy music?