Play guitar!

Side by side Rock Band 2 guitars: Replacement, left and original, rightNow complete with working fret buttons

– John (Cougar) Mellencamp

Okay so this may come as a shock to all of you but my Rock Band 2 guitar came without a working fret button. The first one, the green one, the "A" button. It made most of my songs a little sparse as virtual musicians appear to rely on it heavily.

Fortunately Rock Band 2 guitars have a second set of frets lower down on the handle, stick part. Solo frets is what they are called (during solos you can just press these frets and you don't have to strum).

The Rock Band 2 case and packaging has several requests/warnings to contact their support online instead of returning the product to your retailer so I figured what the heck. To be fair their website was organized specifically for this type of problem (hmmm... what does this say?) and they accepted that I had a bad guitar and immediately took me through the steps of registering with them, setting up a incident report, and providing them with documentation showing that I was inside the 60 day warranty (only 60 days?).

This was all done within 24 hours and they started the process to ship me a replacement. And it came. Two weeks later. I guess two weeks is okay but it seems like a long time when you are busy learning how to play the Rock Band 2 guitar with the wrong buttons. Hopefully I will be able to make the transfer okay.

Anyway, I was surprised by the difference in the replacement guitar. It was a different finish with a faux wood grain front that I like better than the plain black original. Also it came with name brand Energizer™ batteries instead of the original Rock Band 2's no name alkalines. Although they didn't borrow to fasten down the 3 pack of batteries so they were flying around inside the guitar box like there was no tomorrow. As a special added bonus, all the fret buttons work!

Oddly the replacement guitar came with a total lack of documentation. Well, the guitar manual was included, but nothing about the return procedure. No incident number, no "here is your warranty replacement," no "please follow these steps to return your old guitar." Nothing. I would have also said no return shipping label except that I found one by accident... on the reverse side of the original shipping label. Inside the zip-loc bag taped to the outside of the box. Maybe EA doesn't want their broken guitar back? I wonder if they are just waiting to charge me replacement value when they don't get their broken guitar back? It could be a genius marketing idea trying to charge me an inflated price for a second guitar. It certainly sounds like an EA type of genius marketing idea.

In comparison, Microsoft (in their return Xbox coffins) has an overabundance of instructions printed in big letters for the visually impaired – step by step instructions complete with pictures and bright colours – next to impossible to get it wrong. EA? EA sends nothing. Since I don't really want the original broken guitar cluttering up my basement I guess I will have to work out the return shipping process on my own. They ship a barely labeled, undocumented box to me, I'll ship a barely labeled, undocumented box to them. Seems fair.

How many fake guitars can one man need? (After the first two that is...)