# Guitar Hero

> A plastic guitar helped Guitar Hero sell almost 1.5 million copies of its first game.

- Owner: RedOctane (publisher and hardware); Harmonix (developer); later Activision
- Kind: Game
- Sector: Gaming
- Seed date: 2005-11-03
- Milestone date: By end of Feb 2006
- Date basis: Documented milestone; not a measured attention peak. Dates use the stated precision; chart positions are date anchors.
- Spread Score: 39 (Niche, provisional), v1.3
- Mechanics: Underdog, Maker origin, Sell-out loop, Platform jump, Controversy

## Summary

Players reported early Best Buy purchases before the nationwide launch. Holiday parties brought in nongamers. RedOctane announced an MTV partnership, and a later contest invited player videos. The first game approached 1.5 million sales.

## Timeline

- Sep 2005 — Charles and Kai Huang (Retail) — The Huang brothers tried to raise launch funding from venture capitalists, who declined.
- 2005-11-03 — Gary_Whitta and forgeforsaken (Retail) — Forum users reported buying finished copies at Best Buy before the announced nationwide launch.
- 2005-11-08 — RedOctane (Retail) — RedOctane released the PS2 game nationwide with a guitar controller for $69.99.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/developers).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/guitar-hero

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “Guitar Hero.” Case HIS-01600. Spread Score v1.3: 39/100. Updated 2026-10-23. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01600