#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a videogame journalist (Rocksmith!)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy John. We started talking on the twitter not too long ago, and then he reached out and asked if he could write for us regarding his journey through the nerdy realm. I was all DUDDEEE!! That's so raaaddd!! And now, here we are. Like right now, in real time, this is happening. Pretty cool huh? HIT IT JOHN!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's John Sollitto

SO EXCITED, NERDS! A while back I talked about getting into contact with one of the producers of Ubisoft’s game Rocksmith. For those of you who don’t know what the game is, it is essentially Guitar Hero but with an actual electric guitar as your controller. The game comes with a USB adapter that plugs into your guitar and then into your Xbox or Playstation and then the game teaches you how to ACTUALLY play the songs that are in the game on your REAL guitar.

I am WAY excited about this, and being a nerd with a YouTube channel and a group of Facebook fans for The Game Creators Vault (www.facebook.com/GameCreatorsVault) I thought we’d conduct a little experiment. *cue Mythbusters theme music*

Our experiment will have two levels. First, we’re going to take a group of people, maybe 2 or more, we’re not sure how many volunteers we have yet, and have them play the game for 2 hours a day for ten days. Two whole weeks, with weekends off. The game has all sorts of little mini-games to teach you how to play chords and where to put your fingers so you can build up the strength and dexterity needed to really get good at the instrument. These subjects will play the mini-games for an hour and then select one song to play for an hour straight each day of the week during the experiment to see if at the end they can play it on the hardest level, or play the song without the game. An actual test to see if they have learned how to play. 

Our second group will be doing a similar test. They will be learning one song each from the game’s library, but spending their first week only using tablature learning techniques. Basically tablature learning is pictures of the strings on a guitar with numbers on the strings to indicate where your fingers go for the right note. Like this:

So for a week this group will be learning a song like this. And then after that week they’ll use the game to see if it is easier learning the same song with tabs or easier learning with the tools the game has to offer.

Not only am I supremely proud of our team for coming up with this idea and totally getting pumped for doing it, but I’m so excited that Ubisoft is also letting us ask their developers ten questions specifically about the game. Since we’re nice guys though we’d thought we’d give our fans a little treat! If the fans have any questions for Ubisoft about this new game, how it works, was it hard to make, what challenges did they face, they can email us at thegamecreatorsvault@hotmail.com and we’ll take the best five questions to send to Ubisoft! Real fan questions being answered by real game devs. 

My next two posts will be about how the experiment is going and whatnot so expect to hear a lot about blisters on my fingers and all sorts of music and guitar talk. FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK! WE SALUTE YOU!

#nerdsunite

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