Updating a previous item: Courtney Love claims she didn't agree to allow Kurt's likeness to be playable in Guitar Hero 5, Activision says otherwise. Grohl and Novoselic also respond.
By now you've likely seen the video of the late Kurt Cobain's likeness being used as a playable avatar in Guitar Hero 5 (and playing mostly songs the real Cobain would have found appalling). Most people, including the author of that video that circulated the internet so quickly, suspected Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, was responsible for it somehow.
Now, according to her twitter feed (click at your own risk), Love is claiming that she had nothing to do with it and is hinting that a lawsuit is forthcoming.
FOR THE RECORD I DID NOT APPROVE KURTS AVATAR FOR GUYITARHERO5. i think Kurt would despise this game alone let alone this avatar
There's a lot more in the feed about all of this, but it's a little tough to decipher. Activision, who owns Neversoft, makers of Guitar Hero since 2007, have responded already to say, in brief, "actually, Courtney, you did." Love has now said that her lawyers will respond soon, so we haven't heard the end of this. (Actually, while I was writing this, Love's attorneys made their official statement).
Meanwhile, the other two surviving members of Nirvana, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, have also weighed in to say they had nothing to do with Cobain's presence in the game, and that they definitely do not approve of it:
We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a
facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of
Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever
in that area.
While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two
Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows
the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge
Activision to do the right thing in "re-locking" Kurt's character so that this
won't continue in the future.
It's hard to watch an image of Kurt
pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain
wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he
deserves better.
Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl
For the record, several Foo Fighters songs have appeared in Guitar Hero games over the years.
As for gamers themselves? We won't know until the NPD numbers come in, but we're just going to guess that most people are too busy hanging out at Abbey Road Studios to notice.