Activision Pulls Kurt Cobain GH5 Videos From YouTube

[Lord Beautiful]

I get the supposed atrocity of Cobain's death vs this scenario. However, I also see how it doesn't really matter. At all. He didn't die for your sins. He didn't die to make the world a better place. He died because he chose to die. He gave up. Fuck him. I mean that. I mean that with every little bitter mote I can conjure right now. His death has all this magical meaning that is projected on by every little wannabe rebel still shopping at the GAP (Fun Fact: Hot Topic is owned by GAP) and all that projected and forced meaning just cheapens whatever he DID die for.

Johnny Cash is in there as are a number of other cultural icons. Cobain killed himself because he didn't like the commercialization of his band. Well, I don't recall the story about a gun to his head forcing him to sign with a record label. Love had all the power in the world to stop this and she signed it away either because there were pretty colors or she just needed more coke money. Guess what? Grow up. It was done and done legally. Enjoy the irony.

My thoughts exactly. Hell, the second paragraph quoted is almost exactly what went through my head right after I read this:

"One of the issues that lead to Cobain's suicide was the commercialization of his work."

I really don't get what makes Kurt Cobain so special. If people are bitching about an avatar of him singing those kinds of songs, why don't we complain about being capable of making Slash play DragonForce's work in Guitar Hero III? Come on, people. It's a game.

 

[Dan Shive]

Kurt Cobain is survived by his family, friends and fans. To many of those people, this is an act of disrespect towards a loved one and a violation of said loved one's final wishes.

One can easily point out the hypocrisy of Kurt Cobain's anti-commercialism, Courtney Love's folly, and any number of reasons why, logically, people shouldn't care about this. The problem, however, is that this is an emotionally sensitive issue and whatever rationale people may have for why it's okay isn't enough. Nothing short of evidence of Kurt Cobain's approval is going to placate those who feel this is a violation of someone they continue to care about, and many of those same people would feel betrayed if such evidence was found.

The issue, as I see it, is that the creators of this game must have seen this controversy coming, but were not stopped by it. They knew this would upset people who cared about Kurt Cobain, but cared more about making money off of his image. There could also be the (likely accurate) perception that this controversy was allowed as a means to get more people to hear about the game, and that just makes the perceived insult worse.

Of course, given that last hypothesis, the best thing a fan of Kurt Cobain could possibly do is simply ignore the issue and say nothing.

 

[Helmet]

The issue, as I see it, is that the creators of this game must have seen this controversy coming, but were not stopped by it. They knew this would upset people who cared about Kurt Cobain, but cared more about making money off of his image. There could also be the (likely accurate) perception that this controversy was allowed as a means to get more people to hear about the game, and that just makes the perceived insult worse.

To be honest, if I were the creator, this would have never occurred to me. I would have thought something along the lines of,

"Let's see here...I've got a couple Nirvana songs on here...people love Nirvana...Kurt Cobain is the face of Nirvana... Let's get his image, slap it in the game, and make some money! The people who like Nirvana have a treat, the people who don't don't have to use him!"

But, that's just me.

 

[Dan Shive]

"Let's see here...I've got a couple Nirvana songs on here...people love Nirvana...Kurt Cobain is the face of Nirvana... Let's get his image, slap it in the game, and make some money! The people who like Nirvana have a treat, the people who don't don't have to use him!"

But, that's just me.

I'm not assuming they were immediately aware of it, but I am assuming that they had to become aware of it at some point during the process of adding his character. This assumes that the people responsible for Guitar Hero actually research the people they are including in the game.

Of course, my personal assumptions don't count for much. This is more a matter of what the average person person who is offended by his inclusion has assumed, and at this point it seems they only have assumptions to go on. I've yet to see an article that gives the official word on whether the creators saw this coming (at least, not at the Escapist).

Granted, they MUST have known about the controversy after they made their announcement of Cobain's inclusion, but by then they were somewhat married to his being in the game.

Their ignorance could also be perceived as not caring enough about the artists they portray to figure out what makes (or made) them tick, which would be another reason for people who care about artists to get up in arms about Guitar Hero.

 

[AceDiamond]

There is no controversey here but the fact that some people (Grohl, Novoleisc, Love) are up in arms over signing a contract allowing Activision to use Cobain's image how they please. Sure it might be an abomination to some to have him sing Bon Jovi, but you're getting up in arms about a digital representation of someone who died a parody of what he believed in. He already had sold out, and now people are selling out for him, thus we get this digital representation. I'll repeat that: a digital representation. i.e. not real. It's not like it's defaming his character or anything. It's not even him. There's no other major impact on why he's in the game. And to some it might be *gasp* funny. But I think the real problem here is that Kurt's been dead 15 years. Johnny Cash on the other hand you can pretty much do the same thing and he's been dead a lot less time and yet nobody's complaining about that. Simply put, people need to get over themselves.

 

[Dan Shive]

Johnny Cash would have cashed in! *rimshot*

*crickets chirping*

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I think it would be more disrespectful to have Johnny Cash singing some of these songs. I love how people are overreacting to this.

Beatles Rock Band was a better tribute anyway.