Gaming PR and marketing people: can you please cut it the hell out with all the Dubstep? I know you’re trying to be all hip to whatever the kids are “down with” these days, but it’s a huge turn off to a large portion of the rest of your consumer base. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to mute a trailer in the last few months because the crappy dubstep track was ruining the experience for me.
In case you haven’t noticed, the overuse of dubstep is already being satirized. (For example, see the Borderlands 2 Launch Trailer posted recently.) You may have also noticed that beneath every trailer that doesn’t use dubstep, there is now an obligatory comment thanking the creators of the video for it.
Dubstep fans, I’m not attacking you, I’m really not. Like what you like, it’s no skin off my back. If I’m being completely honest, there are even a couple dubstep tracks I legitimately enjoy, but it’s really not my cup of musical seizure. It’s a polarizing genre, most people seem to either love or hate it. To overgeneralize, I find most of what the genre has to offer pretty grating and unpleasant and I know I’m not alone in that—the worst offenders sound like dying dial-up modems screeching agony.
Younger people may not be the entire dubstep fanbase, but I think its safe to say that they make up a large majority. Now, I know we read this statistic every day, but it bears repeating in this context: the new median age for gamers is 37. Marketing folks, it’s probably in your best interest to not make a significant portion of your audience wince and scramble for the mute button every time you’re trying to get them hyped up about a new release.