The year was 1967, and the house band of the London underground was Pink Floyd. They were progenitors of space rock, headlining shows that were as much psychedelic spectacle as rock show. In his prog rock study The Music’s All That Matters, Paul Stump describes a gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall: “[Roger] Waters hurled potatoes at a gong, [Nick] Mason sawed wood, eggs were fried onstage.” They grew into a globe-straddling rock dinosaur, but it all began with four guys with the guts to start a food fight.

Now that Harmonix Music Systems has shipped The Beatles: Rock Band, they have nowhere to go but down. PR guy John Drake says they spent 17 months on research and development for the game, investing more personnel than they’d ever sunk into a single title. Who else deserves that kind of treatment? Led Zeppelin? U2? Herman and the Hermits?

My money’s on Pink Floyd. Not only could they move enough copies to make it worth everyone’s while: they would also push the music game genre in directions that even the Beatles couldn’t muster.

Now, normally I try not to be one of those journos who goes off on some wild game design idea that would either never work or never sell, e.g., “What if you set Super Smash Bros. Brawl … in the Vatican?” Bringing Pink Floyd’s music to Rock Band seems plausible – EMI is already talking about it, and though drummer Nick Mason is sniffy about music games, he never said he’d turn down the cheques. But a whole game about the Floyd that uses their likenesses? Two of the members, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright, were forced out of the band and have since died. And Roger Waters and David Gilmour are, let’s just say, not chummy. You’d never, ever get the cooperation that the Beatles and their widows brought to their own game.

But let’s chew over the potential. The Beatles: Rock Band added little to the basic Rock Band platform. We got three-way harmonies, but otherwise it’s the same line-up of drums, guitar and bass, with no new support studio effects, chamber instruments or even keyboards. Harmonix has thought about adding keyboards to the mix in the past, but they still haven’t crossed the line; one reason I’ve been given is that not enough songs could take advantage of them.

But keyboards have been crucial to Pink Floyd’s sound from the start. Richard Wright played terrific but accessible solos, eschewing the Rick Wakeman workouts that would drive players batty on a little toy keyboard. And he also conjured the textures, synthscapes and unusual sound effects that were key to the band’s sound: think of Shine On (You Crazy Diamond), or the sonar effect on Echoes.

A Pink Floyd game would also break the length barrier. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have shied away from anything over ten minutes, and the side two medley from the Beatles’ Abbey Road will be the genre’s first lengthy suite. Will it pave the way to more prog? Can gamers handle 17 minutes of Dogs, or a whole side of Dark Side of the Moon? I say, sure. Each song has sections that don’t need the full band, giving the lazier players a chance to chill. You could also take a lesson from Left 4 Dead: if someone needed to check the brownies in the middle of Atom Heart Mother, they leave their part on auto-pilot while they’re gone.

But a Pink Floyd game could also break down a bigger barrier: it could help players grow from performers to arrangers. The early Floyd setlists were full of improvised and indeterminate pieces. What about using Natal – which is already on the radar for Rock Band 3 - to play theremin-like effects or shape the sound effects in the abstract section of Echoes? How about a remixer using the loops from Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict? Or why not let the players decide when to ramp up to the climax of Careful With That Axe, Eugene?

The Beatles’ game was about love: our love for the band, the love in the songs, the love that you make and you take. But Pink Floyd was the world’s biggest acid rock band, and they built their career on experimentation. Where the Beatles let you mangle their vocals, Pink Floyd should let you fool around with the sounds, samples and ideas that they fooled around with night after night on stage and month after month in the studio. The guitar solo in Comfortably Numb would move the merch – but the screwing around that inspired the band could make this the most progressive Rock Band yet.

And if you the beat the game? An animation plays, showing Waters and Gilmour sitting at a pub, chatting like old mates. And as the screen fades to black, they share a little fist bump.

I know, I know … it’ll never happen. At least we can get lit and play Audiosurf. Or perhaps there's some other band or person you'd like to see in a game?

Chris Dahlen writes about games, music, pop, and tech. You can find him online at @savetherobot, or drop him a line at chris [at] savetherobot.com.