Activision trademarks Villains
Of Guitar and Drum variety.
If you thought flapping your hands about drunkenly with your eyes closed was Guitar Hero's only natural rival, think again! Judging by Activision's latest US trademark applications, that role will soon be taken up by "Guitar Villain".
We're getting ahead of ourselves, naturally. But Activision has certainly been doing some 'marking, with both "Guitar Villain" and "Drum Villain" among its applications in the back end of 2006, and both linked to games.
"Drum Villain" is an interesting one, of course, as RedOctane - the now-Activision-owned publisher that brought Guitar Hero to the world's attention - has previously said it would like to expand the series to cover other instruments.
One might even be tempted to link this to the core Guitar Hero series' reported transfer to fellow Activision pals Neversoft, whose website currently advertises for positions on a new GH project. Yesterday we speculated that this might leave original developer Harmonix free to experiment in other areas.
Anyway, it goes without saying that all of this is rumour and speculation. We don't need Activision PRs to tell us that (although they did, obviously, which is why we're mentioning it). For more tangible Guitar Heroism, look out for impressions of the upcoming Xbox 360 version and more news on its release date in the fast-approaching future.