I wanted to do something truly epic to celebrate the release of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, so for the last several weeks, I’ve been planning a very large giveaway.
This weekend, I’m giving away 400 DLC songs for Guitar Hero. Hell yes.
As you know, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock arrives in stores on Tuesday, September 28. It’s compatible with all previous Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero DLC, as well as the track imports from both those games as well as the imports from GH: Smash Hits, GH: World Tour, and the just-made-importable GH: Metallica. WoR offers new Star Challenges for all those songs — 13 new plateaus to hit for each of the 500 songs in the GH DLC/import library — so now you have something to prove on every song in the pool. Lots of music choices makes for lots of fun, so the GH team has hooked me up with an obscene amount of PlayStation 3 DLC to give away — your library can be fully stocked for the big release.
I have a mostly Track Packs (which contain three songs each) with a handful of singles to give away, so it’s 120-something codes, but it all adds up to 400 songs in the end. If I give one DLC code away every 15 minutes, the event will last for more than 35 hours straight. Which is crazy. So let’s do exactly that.
I’m calling it the Guitar Hero 400 — a race among all the GH fans on Twitter. Watch for the Twitter hashtag #guitarhero400 and follow me on Twitter — I’m easily followed at twitter.com/oneofswords. All the code goodness will flow from there.
To redeem PS3 voucher codes, just use the Redeem Code option in the Account Management, or you’ll also find it in the upper right part of the PlayStation Store menu. If you aren’t sure how to do it, Sony has nice step-by-step instructions here. Each of these voucher codes can only be used once, so the first person to enter it in the Store and claim it that code’s winner.
To make it a little more interesting, I’m removing a few characters from each voucher code and replacing them with question marks (usually just two, but occasionally three or four). I’ll give you a clue so you can figure out the missing bits. As an example, let me show you what the messages will look like (this code has already been redeemed, so it’s just an example):
#guitarhero400 PS3 DLC Weezer – KE??-3TBF-M23R (?? = Jordan’s jersey) Giveaway details http://bit.ly/ghero400
The #guitarhero400 hashtag is just to keep track of the promotion.
PS3 DLC Weezer means it’s PlayStation 3 DLC for the Weezer Track Pack.
KE??-3TBF-M23R is the actual 12-digit code itself…with two characters replaced by ??
(?? = Jordan’s jersey) is the clue as to what you should type in instead of the ?? — and in this case, the answer is 23, which was Michael Jordan’s number when he played for the Chicago Bulls. (Yes, 45 is an option…but it’s not the right one. In most cases, go with your gut.) These clues are tiny trivia questions that may refer to all kinds of things — sports, science, gaming, culture, music, history, movies, whatever. Some are easy, some are tricky. The point is that it’s not a dead sprint to see who can type the fastest — getting there is supposed to be fun, whether you win the prize or not. I have spent several days crafting these clues!
Giveaway details http://bit.ly/ghero400 points to this page, for folks who might be joining partway through the giveaway.
So, above, the first person to figure out that the ?? is 23 and enter KE23-3TBF-M23R into the PlayStation Store would get a message saying they were about to download the Weezer Track Pack for Guitar Hero. Everybody else would get a note saying that the voucher code has already been redeemed.
It’s kind of hard to redeem PS3 codes when you’re at work or school or some other prison, so I’ll start spewing vouchers at 9am Pacific/12noon Eastern on Saturday, September 25th. My math tells me the codes will run out Sunday night around 8:45pm Pacific/11:45pm Eastern. (If you’re not in one of those time zones, check here to figure it out.)
Since PlayStation 3 DLC is region-coded, this giveaway will only be open to US gamers. They might work for all of North America (try it, Canada!) but I know they will not work in the UK or Europe, as it’s a totally different PlayStation Store there. Check the Contest FAQ if you like; I talk a little bit about DLC giveaways there. This is what I have access to, and this is what I’m able to share with you. My giveaways change regularly, so if this one doesn’t float your boat, don’t worry — another one in the future likely will.
That’s pretty much it. You know when it’s going to happen, it’s going to span 36 hours, and you can drop in for a chance to win whenever you feel like it. Set your alarm, and make sure you’ve pre-ordered Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock so you can enjoy all the cool DLC features with the songs you win. Good luck — and rock, as always, on.
UPDATE 1: Folks seem to be enjoying the event, but many people are noting that the winners are getting in very very quickly. I recommend using a USB keyboard to enter the codes. It’s easier that way. PS3 supports just about any USB keyboard you try…so try. Also, @TheChrisGlass found that you can enter voucher codes using the PlayStation website.
UPDATE 2: “Where are the Xbox 360 codes?” As I said, I don’t have any to give right now — but I did set up a completely different Xbox 360 GH giveaway which is running concurrently.
UPDATE 3: I do not have DLC for every artist in the game. There are a minimum of four and a maximum of six codes representing each artist. If you miss your favorite band, you will have a few more chances to win, but the rotation is not strict — that is, I mixed up the order of the bands on each “lap” so the same artists will not always appear in the same order.
UPDATE 4: To end the giveaway with a fireworks show, I threw out one last trivia question as a surprise at 9pm Sunday — “Which Disney classic did Gene Simmons cover in 1978?” — and said the first person to reply would win a US PS3 prize. Zachary Johnson of Boston MA was first with “When You Wish Upon a Star” and scored a full PS3 superbundle (drums, guitar, mic, and game) for Band Hero.
