[cole-k]

Your comparison hits home for me. I have been playing guitar on-and-off for over a decade (OK, maybe more like trying to play guitar) and I still really enjoy Guitar Hero.

It's instant gratification: I don't have as much fun practicing at .75x speed with a metronome to learn the hard part of a piece. Instead a video game tells me how great I am at "guitar" by being able to push buttons and strum on the beat, not to mention that I hear the sounds of my favorite songs come out when I do it.

For a similar reason, I like Rocksmith (guitar hero but with a real guitar), but the gratification is not quite so instant. They gamify the practicing part but I still need to do it, otherwise the part I'm playing actually sounds bad. And sight-reading is so much harder when there are more than 5 buttons.