The official story is that the devs left it up to Eddie’s son, Wolfgang. “At the end of the day, it became Wolfgang Van Halen, who is a serious Guitar Hero player—probably the best Guitar Hero player that I’ve ever seen including people at Activision… They knew that, the Van Halen brothers and David Lee Roth, so they were like, ‘Ask Wolfgang what bands he wants in,’” Tim Riley, the head of music licensing at Activision, told IGN.
While we’re talking about Wolfgang
The game only spends limited time on Van Halen’s career and mostly features songs that people have a hard time listening to. If you’re my age and find yourself actually listening to Van Halen unironically, and you’re not in a strip club or helping your Dad work on a nonfunctional car with flames painted down the side, your life has taken a terrible turn at some point. (If, on the other hand, you are aged and infirm like my managing editor, then you are just engaging in harmless nostalgia.)
See the full article from “Ars Technica”