The game was originally released on Verizon Wireless, but made available on other cellphone carriers in February 2008. For the first game, Guitar Hero III Mobile, Hands-On Mobile received licensing from Activision to port 51 songs, two characters, three venues, and four guitars to the mobile version. Originally, the Guitar Hero Mobile series was published by Hands-On Mobile and developed by MachineWorks Northwest LLC. The series has proven to be popular the Guitar Hero III Mobile game has been downloaded more than 2 million times, and over 250,000 songs are played each day across the series.

The first three games in the series- Guitar Hero III Mobile, Guitar Hero Backstage Pass, and Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile-were developed by MachineWorks Northwest LLC and published by Hands-On Mobile, while a mobile version of Guitar Hero 5 was developed by Glu Mobile. Guitar Hero Mobile is a series of rhythm video games in the Guitar Hero series, adapting the normal console-based gameplay which uses a guitar-shaped controller to match notes of popular rock music songs to work with the face buttons on advanced mobile phones, including BlackBerry devices and those supporting the Windows Mobile platform. Logo for the first mobile game, Guitar Hero III Mobile

Backstage pass game soundtrack