Taking Dominion Starting with Guitar Hero

[James]

There are usually a few things in life one can look back on and pinpoint as a major life-changing event. I am only 25 so those events are quite few. This one event put me on a course for advancing the kingdom of God in a way I never imagined and involves a simple video game that was semi-popular when it first came out in 2006.

I’m sure most of you have at least heard of the Guitar Hero series of video games. Every time I walk into a Wal-Mart I see the big boxes of GH and Rockband boxes stacked high. In case you don’t know, Rockband is a much more fleshed out gaming experience than GH was originally designed to be. I sort of miss the days when most people thought these games were strange. These games have become a cultural phenomenon on their own but in my life they have had much more long-term meaning than hitting a barrage of colored notes with a fake plastic guitar.

In December 2006 my wife-to-be bought her brother, Matt, Guitar Hero II as a Christmas present, and I must confess, I had never heard of it and thought it strange myself. But hey, appearances aren’t everything. Sometime during January we visited Matt to play GH one night. As soon as I started playing I was hooked. I believe that very night my fiancée and I ran across town visiting store after store searching for the game. We got lucky and found one copy.

For those of you who have never played this game you must understand something about it. It in no way resembles real guitar playing. It takes some serious hand-eye coordination to get anywhere with this game and you must not care about looking stupid to get any good at it and you most definitely must not care about failing as you progress. You will fail and fail miserably. There are four difficulty levels and 8 tiers of 5 songs each. The higher the tier, the more difficult the songs become. You have difficulties Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. I remember testing Expert out in my early days just to see what it was like. “Forget that. I’ll never be able to play well enough to do that.” The difficulty was something I had never expected. I believe from that day my only long-term goal was to be able to “play” on Expert and didn’t care about beating the Expert career.

In March of 2007 I had moved past the stage of just being “hooked.” I had moved into full-blown addiction and determination to be the best at all costs. This really isn’t an exaggeration. Just ask my wife, family, and co-workers. American Vision even posted an article I wrote that contained an explanation of how GH works. There was even a video that showed an 8 year-old kid playing who was quite good. This 8 year-old was the one who got me addicted. He introduced me to the possibilities of having fun and being good at the same time. He also introduced me to either the worst or best website of my life depending on how you look at it. ScoreHero.com took me into its arms and embraced the GH addiction like it meant something. You could submit scores to see how you compared to others, there were charts with the best Star Power paths (special score multiplier), tips and tricks, and loads of wonderful community tidbits. It was self-help for those who only wanted help to continue their addiction. My dad began asking me the same question almost weekly as I became more involved: “Yeah, but can you do anything with this”?

From the ScoreHero.com resource I spent hours upon hours of refining my playing abilities and with a new-found knowledge of how to best play these digital songs dozens of times in a row just to get a few new high scores I set myself up for a new career path. Just stick with me a bit longer. We’re almost there.

This community I had found, this primitive resource of information was so basic. It had only one purpose; to make people extraordinary at a video game. It has accomplished this and much more with closing in on 500,000 members, yet I had joined at lowly #21,000 back when it was a niche game. The massive growth and success of this website showed me something. Scorehero really proved to me that content with a purpose is king. In real-estate it is location. Content is the location of the internet. The most boring website can be a huge success and an online forum can be a wonderful resource. It creates a community of like-minded individuals who all can have one purpose, and when they are all focused on that purpose, great things can be accomplished.

How is any of this relevant in the Christian’s life? How did any of this change my life? The job I currently occupy, Director of Internet Services, at American Vision came about because of Guitar Hero and ScoreHero.

In a weird way Guitar Hero helped me see all of this with the untold amount of lost hours to my life playing Guitar Hero and browsing the ScoreHero forums. I started to read and read and read as much as I could about websites and design and content and anything else I could find. This information was useless to me at my old job as an accountant. At most it was trivia that I would never use; a bunch of useless information for an accountant.

After a while I started relaying the things I was learning to American Vision to help them create a better web presence. There was no one there who could help them implement any of these ideas and especially no one to help design and start up an online forum. Eventually I was offered the chance of helping American Vision with its mission “to restore America to its biblical foundation—from Genesis to Revelation.”

A new-found purpose overcame me from the day I began my new job. I have spent more time reading and studying God’s Word in the past year at American Vision than I have in the past 10. There is still much for me to learn and do, but I am doing everything in my power to take dominion. Where God takes me I do not know. He can use something as silly as a video game to turn a non-productive entertainment gizmo into a productive web presence that is affecting people around the world. My dad’s infamous line “yeah, but can you do anything with this?” was answered in a way neither he nor I ever imagined.

View my Guitar Hero I scores here and my Guitar Hero II scores here.

[JTownsend]

HA ha

I never played guitar Hero, but I currently work as an Accountant in my father-in-laws CPA firm. Funniest of all is that I also do a little art and website building and I am doing a lot more along those lines of building websites and internet marketing for our clients than actual accounting. It's funny to hear when I meet people who have weird similarities.

I think Thomas might have a perspective on this...
Which makes me wonder if an forum or website could be started for "Artistic Accountants"((c)2009 Jeramiah Townsed)...

Who knew there were so many of us.

[James]

My accounting job gave me a lot of free time except for two weeks every month when we had to do closeout. It gave me a lot time to do non-accounting things. While I honestly would rather have been busy with work, not having an accounting degree limited what they would give me so I filled the time with what I thought may be useful skills. I truly spent at least one or two hours a day on ScoreHero studying star power paths and when I got home I would play a song 20-30 times until I got the score I was shooting for or I hit all of the notes. This was before I was married so it was sort of not a big deal.

From the comments on FB it looks like there are many people (not just accountants) who find they are doing non-job related activities at their current employment. Some have even led to knew career paths.

There may be a website idea along the lines of "My job is to.....but I.....all day instead"

It could be funny.

[Brother Les]

by James
In a weird way Guitar Hero helped me see all of this with the untold amount of lost hours to my life playing Guitar Hero and browsing the ScoreHero forums.

The neighbor kid brought his over to our house weeks on end..... I lost my kids to that mind sucker.... I wanted my other mind sucker back (the TV)

I finally had to ban it from my house and told my kids there was a life away from GH. I also said that if I saw it in my house again I would use it for target practice....

[Mamamacathy]

I have to say you had me hooked reading about your GH addiction to see where it was leading. So glad I finished reading to the last paragraph. Amazing what God used to bring you closer to Him and to help us 'take dominion'. Thank you.

[James]

Mamamacathy,

I'm glad you enjoyed the article. It was a really fun piece to write.

Brother Les,

The lost hours to my life have ended up not really being all that lost. Without the time and effort involved in playing Guitar Hero, who knows where I'd be today; probably still doing the same job I had way back when.

[Brother Les]

by James
Brother Les,

The lost hours to my life have ended up not really being all that lost. Without the time and effort involved in playing Guitar Hero, who knows where I'd be today; probably still doing the same job I had way back when.

One Sage piece of advise, "Learn something new everyday, even if you did not mean to".


Blessings
Brother Les

[thirstyjon]

In a weird way Guitar Hero helped me see all of this with the untold amount of lost hours to my life playing Guitar Hero and browsing the ScoreHero forums. I started to read and read and read as much as I could about websites and design and content and anything else I could find. This information was useless to me at my old job as an accountant. At most it was trivia that I would never use; a bunch of useless information for an accountant.

After a while I started relaying the things I was learning to American Vision to help them create a better web presence. There was no one there who could help them implement any of these ideas and especially no one to help design and start up an online forum. Eventually I was offered the chance of helping American Vision with its mission “to restore America to its biblical foundation—from Genesis to Revelation.”

I have learned about web stuff in a similar way, mostly as a hobby! I'm hardly an expert but it's amazing what you can do with a simple webhosting account, cPanel, Simplescripts, and Fantastico!

Someone with no formal web training can do websites, blogs, forums, ecommerce.

Pretty remarkable.

I am glad to see this stuff being used for the Kingdom! I'm trying to do the same!

[atkidoug]

So, James,

I ask this in sincerity: Are you saying it was worth it to waste so many hours of your life, even ignoring your family and work? (You stated, "I had moved into full-blown addiction and determination to be the best at all costs. This really isn’t an exaggeration. Just ask my wife, family, and co-workers."), because that's what is sounds like. It sounds like your story could be an encouragement to my children who love to play multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) for hours on end!

How has this already affected your wife and family in ways that will never be recovered?

Certainly God can take our sins, help us learn from our mistakes, and help us build from the ashes. But the tone of your post sounds like you are happy that you did what you did.

I would be interested in your thoughts. When I began reading your post I thought it would be a great one to show to my sons, but by the time I reached the end it seemed like it would encourage them to waste their time even more! <grin>

Thanks!

Doug

[James]

atkidoug,

The point is that those seemingly wasteful hours weren't a waste at all. I pursued and learned something because of Guitar Hero. I didn't ignore my family, work, and friends because of it. I encouraged them to be a part of it and in some ways it brought us closer together. My wife and I still play together and in a weird way it is a team building and cooperative exercise. I'm much better than she is and she looks to me for encouragement and help. She listens but that doesn't mean that I can just rattle off a bunch of information and expect her to listen to me. I must do it in a loving way that helps her and not to do it in such a way that frustrates her. My friends came over and we would fellowship and play the game. It is a great ice breaker and a fun way to make new friends. I even went to a competition with some co-workers where we got to spend some time together outside of work and even become friends.

I turned something pointless into something good. It takes initiative on the individual's part to make something of nothing. If I just sat around playing the game all day and doing nothing else then yes it is a complete waste of time and nothing will probably come of it and that includes MMORPGs. I have seen people get totally involved in video games and stay within those imaginative worlds. Their lives lead nowhere. Maybe I shouldn't have said "at all costs" but it shouldn't be taken completely literal.

My goal wasn't to show how wonderful getting sucked into a video game was. My point is that even the most bizarre of situations can be turned into something useful and good if we care enough to pursue something better.

When I left my accounting job both of my managers were sad to see me leave and had nothing but encouraging things to say and they even left room for me to return. Guitar Hero occupied a chunk of my time but I was able to plan a wedding, hold a full-time job, make friends, get married, learn new skills, etc.

Children should be encouraged to find something useful out of what they find enjoyable within a biblical worldview. As a parent you are in charge of your childs' time while they are in your household. If something becomes unhealthy it shouldn't just be discouraged but encourage them to do something productive.

[tladma]

Too bad you never thought to go with "Guitar Praise".

[Catie]

Are you saying it was worth it to waste so many hours of your life, even ignoring your family and work?

When did he say he ignored his family and work?

How has this already affected your wife and family in ways that will never be recovered?

You're making assumptions from an article that you apparently didn't read or half-heartily read. What makes you think we need recovering?

Certainly God can take our sins, help us learn from our mistakes, and help us build from the ashes. But the tone of your post sounds like you are happy that you did what you did.

And what was it that James "did?" Read the article...you'll find out.

When I began reading your post I thought it would be a great one to show to my sons, but by the time I reached the end it seemed like it would encourage them to waste their time even more!

It would be a great post to show your sons since apparently they spend so much time role-playing instead of in fellowship with their family.