For a hot minute, the 'Guitar Hero' video-game franchise was hailed as the savior of the music business, but now it’s dead and buried. Could Led Zeppelin have saved it? The CEO of Activision, the long-running software company that developed the game, thinks the band might have.

“The number one thing that our audiences wanted in 'Guitar Hero' was Led Zeppelin,” Activision head Bobby Kotick told Forbes magazine. “But we couldn't get Led Zeppelin to consent to give us the rights.”

If the famously protective Zeppelin would have consented, they would have been the focus of a deluxe edition of the game, receiving a roll-out in the style of the Van Halen, Metallica and Aerosmith versions of 'Guitar Hero'. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and pal Jack White (of the White Stripes) both slagged music video games at a press conference while promoting their 2009 guitar movie ‘It Might Get Loud.’

"It's depressing to have a label come and tell you that ['Guitar Hero'] is how kids are learning about music and experiencing music," White said.

Page added that the simplified versions did little to facilitate a true music education, and the popular notion that it could was mere fantasy: "You think of the drum part that John Bonham did on Led Zeppelin's first track on the first album, 'Good Times, Bad Times’ -- how many drummers in the world can play that part?"

Did you buy any of the special band editions of 'Guitar Hero'? Would you have bucked up for a Zeppelin edition?

Watch Led Zeppelin Perform 'Stairway to Heaven' in 'The Song Remains the Same'

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