The Product Placement Game

Are you a Guitar Hero? Or a kick ass drummer on Rock Band? Or are you more of a dancer, showing off your mad skillz on Just Dance? Personally, I'm a Guitar Hero and lead guitarist/singer when I Rock Band. I've been playing these games since high school, yet I never realized their product placement value until now. Think about it, every song you're playing is exposing you to the artist if you didn't know them before the game and if you did know them, you're playing the song so much you'll end up liking it by familiarity. These games even have features that allow you to "unlock" or purchase newly-released songs and even band-specific song packs. Others have entire discs devoted to a specific artist--everything from the venues in the game to the songs you must master relate to the band's artistic journey.

These games pose the question, is everything a vehicle for consumption? Were they created to sell us artists or to legitimately entertain us? Think about it next time you innocently pick up that guitar-shaped controller.