While the novelty of music games has pretty much worn out for me — I’m on a buying freeze until my dream Rock Band: Beatles Edition is released — they’re still a seemingly huge business with many people, especially casual gamers. And CNN now credits Guitar Hero and Rock Band for saving rock n’ roll:

A few years ago, rock music was struggling on the charts. With hip-hop and teen pop ruling, rock was finding it hard to break through with new music — or sell more of the old.

But “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” have prompted kids born in the ’90s to discover artists from the ’70s and ’80s such as Aerosmith, Twisted Sister and Pat Benatar. The games’ amazing popularity — last year, the two brought in more than $935 million in revenue, according to the NPD Group market research company — has helped create success in other markets, according to observers. Video Watch Ulrich and others praise the games on “American Morning” »

Geoff Mayfield, senior analyst and director of charts for Billboard magazine, said he sees a direct cause-and-effect for some of the artists who have licensed their songs to “Guitar Hero.”

“A few weeks ago, when the game featuring Aerosmith [’Guitar Hero: Aerosmith’] came out, there was more than a 40 percent increase in their catalog sales. I expect you’ll see that again when Metallica gets the same kind of treatment in a few weeks,” Mayfield said.

It’s great to see these games exposing kids to music they might otherwise not have heard (you can thank America’s sorry-ass excuse for radio for that), but it would be nice to see these games somehow promoting new music from new bands.

Video Games