What do real guitarists think about Guitar Hero?

This topic has probably been brought up before, but I haven't been around long enough to see if it did. Anyway, a lot of guitarists have bashed Guitar Hero for being fake. The "pick up a real guitar" argument has been brought up a lot. I feel that this argument is slightly, wrong. You don't tell someone who plays Call of Duty to join the military. It's totally OK if someone is inspired by GH (like me) to play actual guitar. But my gripe is when someone thinks that they are kick ass if they can FC Cult of Personality.

Another thing, GH is also great for getting people to explore different bands, hell even get into rock music. Again I am a prime example of this. I used to think rock was all noise. But man do I regret not picking up a guitar and listening to Megadeth at a young age.

I played Guitar Hero before ever playing guitar and I don't really see a point in bashing it unless the people who use playing it as a voucher for real guitar experience (but the thing at fault would be the person, not the game). I was quite good at it, but knew that it wouldn't mean I'd be good at guitar, too.

I like it, it's fun (the difficult songs, at least). I haven't played it in over a year but I don't regret playing it. I even won a few hundred bucks in a tournament because of it :D

I probably won't ever go back to it, but I definitely am not going to just hate on it.

Can't say with the guitar since the bass i play, but to the drum kit for the game, it pretty ok.

I started to play guitar because I once played GH in my friend's house so I think it's a good motivator to start playing instruments

There is nothing wrong with the game itself, I'm not a huge fan of it, but that's because it isn't really my type of game.
But has people have stated, it's not playing guitar, playing GH or RockBand will not make you good at playing the Guitar, bass or drums, neither will it make you better at singing. The problem lies in that dumbfucks think it will, and goes "Pfft, I'm probably SO much better at guitar than you because I nail [insert hard-as-fuck song here] without a single error.

Prime example: me and a few friends are trying to get our "band" back together but we need a new drummer, and some dude our singer knew was like "Hell yeah! I can play drums!"
We didn't really have time to question the guy so we just told him a time and place to meet us so that we could just jam something together. He sucked ass, big time, hell even I play drums better and I can't play drums for shit. Turns out that the only experience he had was playing GH/Rock Band. On the games he nail every beat without much problem, but playing for real is a totally different matter. And it's guys like this that make people who can actually play instruments rage.

I play a little guitar, nothing fancy. Guitar Hero's alright, i think it helps train finger coordination, a good platform for beginners to start from.

Also, I have heard that Rock Band 3 will have a six-string guitar that will replace the button plastic toy ones, and it can even be plugged into an amp and used as a regular guitar. This'll be really good for beginners, or pros even, to sharpen their skills and learn how to play guitar.

LMAO did you guys tell the wannabe GTFO? What happened after you found out he sucked

I'm not a particularly good guitarist, but I do play some and I am a serious musician, so I'll chime in here. It's good for getting people interested in guitar, but the skills required to be good at guitar hero are a good ways away from the skills required to be good at guitar.

I'll start with some positives:

-GH requires players to read and process a notational system. True, it is much less complex than tabs or standard western notation, but there are similarities. I have in fact actually found that playing GH boosts my sightreading ability on flute because I am forced to get good at processing notational patterns quickly. And one big similarity that GH notation has with standard notation is that when playing fast, you have to read the overall shapes of larger chunks of notes because you don't have time to read each individual note.
-GH requires players to coordinate the use of both hands. Actual guitar requires this to an even greater degree.
-GH requires rhythmic skill
-A lot of the music in GH has very virtuostic guitar parts, so it might help people realize exactly how challenging it is to play like that. If I can't even do it in a game, how hard is it to do on actual guitar?

Some negatives
-doesn't give you very good feedback regarding your skills. If you screw up it stops the track and makes noises, but it doesn't let you know if your rhythm is right on, or a little bit off but not so much that the game thought you missed the note. On some versions of GH, you have quite a bit of rhythmic leeway
-buttons instead of strings. It simulates the up-and-down-the-neck motion if guitar playing somewhat but not the across-the-strings motion. Also, getting the right pressure on strings can be a challenge, and the buttons are no good for that
-same deal with strumbar vs. strings. It only simulates on aspect of the strumming hand on an actual guitar
-some people think that GH qualifies them to be actual instrumentalists without practicing. It doesn't work that way, and practicing a real instrument is usually much more difficult and potentially frustrating than GH

Guitar is probably the worst intsrument in the series, since the transitions by far the toughest. Drums are a good introduction, but just being good at them doesn't guarantee you'll be good with a real kit. And vocals... that's probably the best, actually. Even if all you have to do is match the pitch, it's in us to try and match the voice too. |: