An Update and a Broken Man

UPDATE:

Gabe received two e-mails from Paul Christoforo. One asking him to "make it stop" and another with an apology. Though, as Gabe put it, "there is a big difference between being sorry and being sorry you got caught."

Here's the link to the update: An update

Also, this was posted this morning:

Can I just say again how much I love these guys?

Dave, the Penny Arcade reader who brought all of this to Mike Krahulik's (Gabe) attention also received an apology e-mail. To be completely honest, it looks to be filled of excuses and possibly written by a completely different individual in order to spare the company any more bad press.


Here's a copy of it that I found on Gamerfront.net (click on the link to read their article on the situation):



Hey Dave,
I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed from beginning to end , You caught me on an extremely bad day and I had been dealing with 100’s and hundreds of emails trying to explain the situation to everyone on where the product was and you just pushed me a little too much and I should have just apologized and tried to explain things better. Also I had a really bad day losing a friend to an overdose and the stress of my newborn baby and the Holiday ,missing my family and just stressing on getting product out to everyone and why it was held up in customs wore me out.
I am deeply sorry for any disrespect , aggravation or lack of information on the delivery date. We knew when product was leaving china and we were trying to adhere to a strict deadline but due to port issues and air freight issues. The units are domestic now and awaiting pick up at customs . So we missed the 17th deadline and I apologize for that but it was out of my control and besides me no one else was helping me handle the situation so imagine the weight on my shoulders.
I’m not asking for any sympathy just for some understanding and forgiveness , I’m human just like everyone else and made a mistake. I underestimated you and its cost me a lot of trouble thousands of spam emails , a lot of personal bashing , and internet spam and trouble and just overall stress with my wife and newborn. I ask that you please accept my apology as a peace offering I will refund your money and give you your 2 units/Avengers free of charge please help me to get some of this negativity removed or at least my personal name although its already all over the internet and the calls and emails will not stop but any help will be appreciated especially with penny arcade as Mike and edit his own website I owe him an apology too which I will write next.



Not asking for sympathy, Christoforo? Really, now?


The overall tone of the apology e-mail is completely different from everything we had seen from Christoforo up until yesterday evening which leads me to believe that someone else actually took the time to sit down and compose this apology in a last ditch effort to save face. 
Also, I'd just like to note that even if the mention of the loss of a friend is true, it certainly does not excuse Christoforo's behavior toward a customer of his. If you are unable to keep your professional and personal behaviors separate from one another, you have no right being the President of a company, or even an employee for that matter. 


It also looks like Paul Christoforo changed his Twitter username in order to escape the masses. 
I think the new OceanMarketting Twitter is an improvement on the old one. Have a look:


OceanMarketting Twitter

Paul Christoforo NEW Twitter

And then there's this gem:

Ocean Deep Sea

More news keeps surfacing on Paul Christoforo, mostly concerning just how long of a terrible track record he's had in dealing with customers in the past. It's honestly a wonder that he lasted this long. 


Another example of Christoforo's complete lack of professionalism was recorded on another blog back in June. The blog Nate's Network had made a post on June 11th of this year concerning a recent customer service issue he had had with Ocean Marketing concerning an Avenger controller he had ordered on February 5th of this year. After a series of e-mails to what I can only assume was an automated bot, Nate finally began receiving responses from Paul Christoforo. The situation did not improve. 
You can take a look at Nate's full blog post here: Poor Customer Service


There is also this Police Report which surfaced on Gameranx concerning a Domestic Violence charge made against Paul Christoforo by one Catherine P. Sherman back in 2008. 


And of course, what story would be complete without the ol' Roids Rage excuse? Am I right?
Kotaku reached out to Brandon Leidel, Director of Marketing for Avenger Controller, for a comment on the PR scandal that exploded yesterday. They received a prompt reply where it seemed that Brandon Leidl stated that " things are a bit blown out of proportion on this today." 


Closer examination of the e-mail revealed that the sender of the e-mail had not been Brandon Leidel (Brandon@AvengerController.com). The e-mail had been sent by a "cstrophic@hotmail.com." Some internet snooping on their part revealed that the e-mail was also registered as a contact address for a user named "TheAngryPimp" on Steroid.com, an internet message board for people who used anabolic steroids. A post on that site by that user was made concerning a drug named Tamox, "shorthand for Tamoxifen which is an estrogen receptor antagonist used as a "post-cycle recovery" compound for those coming off of a round of anabolic steroids." (Kotaku). 


Kotaku eventually received an e-mail from the REAL Brandon Leidel. 

Hi Joel,

I have been following this story since this morning when someone notified me about what was going on. I did not write that response to you.

Yes, in the past I received email at brandon@avengercontroller.com but even then we were an outsourced marketing agency for N-Control. I no longer receive email at that address because we fired N-Control as a client about 8 months ago due to constant shipping delays (which we had to deal with) and their association with Paul Cristoforo who is a street thug masquerading as a self proclaimed "Marketing Professional". This guy is a complete fool and somehow strong armed his way into working with the company so we walked away. I am not surprised in the slightest bit by what's going on right now. In fact, we told the owners of the company on many occasions that this would eventually happen.

I wasn't going to chime in but since he is replying as me, I can't resist. I personally can't stand him.

Brandon

Do pardon me while I do my spiteful happy dance. 


Cheers. 

Ocean Marketing's HUGE Mistake.

I am almost at a complete loss for words at the situation I just became aware of a few moments ago via GameTrailers.com through my Facebook news feed.

There I was, innocently perusing my Facebook news feed as I had some downtime at my job and I noticed the link posted by GameTrailers.com simply entitled: "EVERYONE is talking about this right now...and that's pretty much why you don't mess with gamers..." with a link to Penny Arcade below. Being the webcomic and gaming fan that I am, I was already familiar with Penny Arcade and am a fan of theirs. I was not prepared for what I was about to read.


When I attempted to click the link to Penny Arcade, I found that it wasn't working. That was hint number two that something major had just transpired on the Penny Arcade website. When a site as popular as theirs ends up not loading, the usual case is too much incoming traffic to the site. Hint number one was the title that GameTrailers.com had put for their link to Penny Arcade (hint one and a half was reading one of the comments that stated  "He even had the nerve to call IGN's Scott Lowe a douche bag").

Once I had finally gotten the site to load, I found that it was permalinked to an article written by Gabe, the artist of Penny Arcade. That alerted me that something must have been wrong. Gabe tends to not write articles on the Penny Arcade site too much unless it is of some value and importance to the community or his readers. Usually his portion of the news feed on the site pertains to his artwork. Boy, was I in for a fun ride into hilarity land.

It seems that a reader of Penny Arcade had gotten into a bit of a- I'm not even sure what the proper word for this is- for now let's call it a "discussion" with a PR representative from Ocean Marketting. For those who don't know (myself included) Ocean Marketting is "a company responsible for a range of third party peripherals" (Destructoid). Among those is the Avenger Controller.  Essentially, this controller is supposed to be able to enhance your reaction time in games where it is necessary (FPS, racing, etc) (which does not look the least bit aesthetically pleasing to me nor does it look like it would actually help your ability to respond faster. But I digress.)

The long and short of it is Dave, the Penny Arcade reader, e-mailed one Paul Christoforo with questions regarding his pre-order of 2 PS3 Avenger controllers, one of which was going to be a Christmas gift. Christoforo's response was simply: December 17th. Understandably, Dave was a bit confused by the cryptic response and sought to gain more information. The next series of e-mails exchanged turned from what should have been a polite and informative dialogue between a costumer and the provider into a small child attempting to belittle someone who was clearly more mature and knowledgeable about how a situation like this should have been handled.

Can you guess which one was the child?

If you thought that perhaps Christoforo was the bigger man in this situation, you guessed horribly wrong. Through a series of e-mails that resemble a disgruntled ten year old's attempts to psyche out his 25 year old opponent in Call of Duty (assuming the 25 year old is of a mature mental state, you just never know with CoD), Christoforo effectively displays just how incapable of handling his job title he is. Oh, but it gets BETTER.

Dave sent a copy of these e-mails to Penny Arcade's Gabe a.k.a Mike Krahulik, one of the founders of PAX and Child's Play. Now, Gabe was content to stay on the sidelines and monitor what was transpiring between him and Christoforo. That is, until Christoforo responded to Dave with: "LOL Thanks for the Free PR I know the Editor N Chief of Kotaku , IGN , Engadget I’ll be meeting them at CES" and "see you at CES , E3 , Pax East ….? Oh wait you have to ask mom and pa dukes your not an industry professional and you have no money on snap you just got told." It was the PAX East comment that caught Gabe's attention, causing him to engage in a conversation with Dave and Christoforo stating that "Holy shit this is unbelievable. Dave, if this guy has a booth at Pax east we will cancel it." To which Christoforo responded with one of the most grievous professional faux pas I have ever witnessed. First, he stated that they were not going to get a booth at PAX East because they had "bigger and better" shows to go to. Then, he went on to say that it doesn't matter what Mike Krahulik (THE MAN WHO RUNS PAX EAST) says, he'll have a booth there anyway because money and he has connections in Boston and evidently knows the Mayor.

Mike Krahulik handled the situation with all the poise expected from a professional in this situation, calmly repeating that he is the one who runs PAX, how he also runs (along with Tycho) Penny Arcade and how Christoforo will never have a table at PAX East. Or any other PAX event for that matter.


What has followed from this is nearly every gaming news website exploding with this story and spreading it further. I'm just waiting for that New York Times spread.

To the original e-mail exchange: Just, Wow!
Destructoid Article: Ocean Marketing: Most unpleasant PR rep in gaming -Destructoid
The Examiner: Ocean Marketing Makes Fatal PR Mistake

Also, in case you are feeling particularly impish after reading this (courtesy Penny Arcade):


info@avengercontroller.com 
Ocean Marketing Paul Christoforo on Twitter - @OceanMarketting 
***-***-****


Cheers.

Explanations and a Tournament Review (and a SURPRISE)

Oh dear... It seems I've forgotten to update the blog. Again. I really need to keep a better handle on this thing

In all honesty though, the reason I haven't updated anything here is because there hasn't really been anything TO update. I'm no closer to achieving the mid-goal of completing 50% of The List than I was a couple months ago when I started this blog. The reason for this being:

1. I'm poor,
2. I'm poor.
3. I have a job.

I'm not really able to devote all the time I want to completing The List because of other responsibilities I have, mostly to save up enough money to be able to move out of my parents' house one day and hopefully figure out an actual career instead of scraping by with the menial position in the office I work in. But that's another blog post for another blog.

In order to help spur myself back into the swing of actually getting through this monster of a List, I have decided I'm going to live-stream my efforts to complete most of the list. Obviously, some of the games listed are simply too long to live-stream, in which case I will capture some video of my gameplay and record my reactions during play and put those up on ze interwebs. More on that in later blog posts.

I recently wrote an article regarding my experience at a (albeit small) tournament held by a local video game group here in Puerto Rico and have decided to put it up here.
Some explanation before the actual article: I am part of a group of individuals called ArcadeBox who wish to dedicate ourselves to providing a live-streaming service to all (though concentrating mostly on video game tournaments). As part of this group, I went to a tournament event held on Saturday November 19th in order to meet other like-minded individuals and discover a new comic book store here on the island (even though it is an hour drive, it's worth it). So, here's the article:



Ultimate Fighting Madness!
Tournament Hosted by Online Gaming Madness


This past Saturday the 19th of November, Uriel(ArcadeBox member and colleague) and myself had the pleasure of going and contributing to Ultimate Fighting Madness, a tournament held by Online Gaming Madness in Comix Megazone in Arecibo for cash prizes.

We met up with the members of Online Gaming Madness who turned out to be a group of like-minded and friendly individuals, after introductions Uriel went off to speak with other tournament players while I decided to hang back from the crowd and introduce myself to Aer0blue, the person responsible for maintaining the stream of the event. He was a very friendly and offered for me to sit in with him during the stream.

Once introductions had been covered I noticed that people began crowding the store, I would look away for a moment and ten more individuals would pop up, seemingly from nowhere. The level of excitment and anticipation for the event could be felt from across the room. Old players and new mingled with each other, engaging in conversation on the games they were going to compete in and the merchandise that lined the walls. This displayed the advantages to having Comix Megazone be the venue for this event, it allowed players to browse through the selection while they awaited their chance to compete, in this way gaining the store a broader clientele and providing an air-conditioned, decently sized locale for Online Gaming Madness to hold their event. A perfect win-win situation if I ever saw one.

The venue itself turned out to be a rather impressive sight. I had not been to many comic book stores on the island and those I had been to left much to be desired. Comix Megazone provided a comfortable atmosphere for those awaiting to compete and a distraction until set-up had completed. Players occupied themselves by browsing the store, I found myself purchasing a good number of comic books after going around the store and viewing their selection whcih was fairly impressive although limited due to the owners of Comix Megazone being away at a local convention and taking most of the merchandise with them. The locale also provided a chance to expand the viewership from just players to regulars at the store who decided to take an interest in the activities going on inside.

Players who had become restless while browsing the store were invited to play casual matches against each other as a sort of warm-up. Nearly every game station in the store was fully occupied with their own little crowds of spectators watching the matches and eagerly awaiting their turns to play. A short while after, Reyanaldo Rosa Urbistondo, leader of Online Gaming Madness, announced that the tournament was about to start and requested all those who wished to compete to form a line and put themselves down on the list with the game they would play. A line that nearly went around the store immediately formed and after all players had been inscribed to compete, the tournament was under way.

The stream was well monitored though it did run into a few problems mostly due to the fact that Aer0blue had to rely on the wireless modem of the store instead of having a hard line to the Internet. This normally would not present a large problem, but unfortunately in Puerto Rico we have to deal with a limited amount of bandwith for a multitude of reasons we will cover in future articles. Uriel was invited to aid in commentating for the tournament and Aer0blue enlisted the help of online viewers to alert him when the stream froze or if there was a problem with the quality at any time. The viewers were more than happy to provide that information and kept the commentators as entertained as they kept the viewers.

Overall, it was a great opportunity to be able to participate in this event and meet more people with similar ideas to ours regarding the gaming community as a whole. We look forward to being able to work with OGM on any future events and bring you, our readers, updates on these.


Games played during Ultimate Fighting Madness:

Super Smash Brothers Melee

Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Mortal Kombat IX

Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3



So, that was the review. Now for the "surprise" portion of this post.
I was chosen as many others were this past weekend to participate in the Beta testing of...

Star Wars: The Old Republic


Needless to say, I was damn excited about being able to take part in the Beta testing of the game. I'll be putting up a review of my experiences later on in the week as the Beta may have been extended until tomorrow morning. Which, if that is the case, I'm definitely going to disappear from the world later tonight.

It's totally been extended. GOOD-BYE WORLD!

Cheers!

Games in Progress:
Mass Effect (Yes, I've already played ME and ME2, doing another playthrough for ME3 release)
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (At the third dungeon)
Dragon Age: Origins(At Ostagar though I think I might leave to do other missions)

Zelda and Extra Life 2011

Greetings all!

Yes yes, I know, been a bit of a while.

Current status on The List: I'm playing through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past right now.

I'm up to the third dungeon in the game, just have to figure out how to get the treasure in it to kill the boss and everything will be golden!



Now for a bit of serious news:

A group of friends and myself have signed up to be a part of Extra Life 2011. What is Extra Life, you ask? Extra Life is a fundraising event made by a group of gamers in order to benefit hospitals in the Children's Miracle Network. On Oct 15th, all participants gamed for 24 hours in order to raise funds for the hospitals they were supporting, myself included.

I was part of a group composed of some friends of mine who sought to raise money for our local Children's Miracle Network Hospital - San Jorge Children's Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We managed to raise up to $687.19. BUT! We still need YOUR help!

THIS SATURDAY there will be a SECOND Extra Life event for those who couldn't participate/donate last saturday.

My team will be participating in the efforts once more in order to see if we can reach (or hopefully surpass) our goal of $1,000! All you have to do is click on the button below to be directed to our team site. From there, you click on ANY participant's name and then click the Support Me button on their Extra Life page. Even if you can't donate, spread the word around!

100% of the proceeds go DIRECTLY to the hospital we are supporting (and are tax deductible).

Please help us reach our goal for San Jorge Children's Hospital! Your donation will go directly to helping chidlren in desperate need of treatment and to updating the hospital's equipment!



  

Did I mention we will be livestreaming the event for a second time? Oh, I didn't mention it was livestreamed on Oct 15th? Do pardon me. If you wish to watch some of the livestream from Oct 15th AND wish to tune in this saturday, just visit: http://twitch.tv/arcadeboxtv

What is...

So, I was going to make a post describing which games I am currently playing but then I found this:

I just had to share it the minute I watched it. I follow this lovely Scottish gentleman on YouTube and if you enjoy Doctor Who and tribute bands, you may want to consider watching him too (By consider, I mean subscribe to him immediately. Never a dull moment with Liam here). 

He does pose a fairly interesting question, one that many of us, myself included, have asked at one point of our nerdy lives or another: just what IS a gamer? Is it the amount of games played? Knowledge on said games? Which console you play? 

There are quite a few different views on just what constitues a gamer, Liam himself asked for a couple of viewers to post a response in his comments section on what they believe a gamer is. The one I found most interesting was this one, posted by EmmaOnATangent: (Note: David Tennant was the actor who portrayed Doctor Who during the 2nd-4th season of the new series. Liam had made a video regarding a curious and rather humorous incident with Mr. Tennant. Which can be found here. Also, bit of a follow-up disclaimer video here.)

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that a "gamer" SHOULD be someone who loves games. Both watching and playing them, even if you play them poorly, or don't happen to OBSESSED with them. Because love is not obsession (as anyone who has been stalked my David Tennant should know ;) JUST LOVE GAMES! If that's chess, rugby, tennis, poker or Portal shouldn't matter, but, of course, for some reason it does.

I say, as Nerdfighters, we should try to oust this stereotype. JUST LOVE GAMES!

Stay groovy! :)

This struck me as a particularly interesting comment because of the definition this subscriber provided in response. The term "gamer" over recent years defines a person who is overly excited or passionate about- and finds a good amount of their time devoted to- playing Video Games. However, this individual defines a "gamer" as anyone who loves games in general, any game, be it through an electronic medium or in the physical world.  Now, I don't seek to propose a change to the definition of the term "gamer", I just thought it was genuinely interesting that this person defines it as such. 

To me, a gamer is defined by a love and passion for every aspect of a video game as well as their experience with them. I don't define a gamer by the amount of games played (Now, now, hold your horses people, I'm not being a hypocrite here, keep reading) because the sad truth is anyone with good motor skills and better hand-eye co-ordination could breeze through a good amount of video games without even the slightest appreciation for the game itself. My personal quest in seeking to play as many games on The List as I can comes from an overwhelming desire to expand my current knowledge on video games and to damn well say I've played all the video games my friends constantly gush about. I was never able to play these games because my first system was a PlayStation 2 and I honestly did not have the money in order to afford the games I wanted; and before you even start, yes, asking my parents was out of the question. I'm not saying that my parents are horrible people, they aren't, they just never really understood why I wanted to play games that were mostly associated as the past-times of boys (the male vs. female debate is one too long and too old for me to really want to get into so let's just leave it at that). 

Now that I am older and have the means in order to acquire games myself, I have decided that it is a perfect time to look back on the games of old and finally play that which I had coveted from my much more fortunate friends. Currently, I am playing through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my Nintendo DSlite and finding it quite enjoyable. I'll be putting up reviews on each game as I complete them and possibly making vlog (video log) or podcasts about my experience (this is less of a "possibly" and more of an "almost certainly" considering my friends decided it must be so.)

I'll leave you with this though: What do you consider a gamer? In your own words? (That's right, close out of that wiki entry right this minute and use that wonderful mass of tissue in that head of yours to conjure up an original answer)

Cheers!

The List

Herein The List shall be transcribed (not for the faint of heart)(and in no particular order)(they aren't numbered because god damn I don't want to fear this list any more than I already do):

Resident Evil Series
Xenogears (I can hear the screams already)
Secret of Mana
Chrono Trigger
Super Metroid
Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past
Super Mario World
Yoshi's Island
Donkey Kong Country Series (I have played SOME of these, just can't remember which ones)
Super Mario RPG
Kirby's Adventure
Kirby Super Star
Super Mario Allstars
Final Fantasy Tactics
Star Fox 64 (Down, rabid fanboys!)
Megaman 3, 7, 8
Megaman X
TMNT 4
Tales of Syphonia
Sonic Series
Gunstar Heroes
Streets of Rage
Lunar TSST
Super Mario 64
Mischief Maker
Goldeneye (...)
Perfect Dark
Majoras Mask (I know, quite the controversy with this one, but we'll see what I make of it)
Rogue Squadron
Mario Kart (Ok, I HAVE played Mario Kart before, just... you know... not the original one...)
Crash Bandicoot 2
Castlevania Symphony of The Night
Parasite Eve
Twisted Metal
Valkyrie Profile
Blast Corps
Tony Hawks (I cannot express how much I really don't want to play this game -_-)
Metal Gear Solid
Mistical Ninja
Silent Hill Series (Fully intend to play this in the dark at 2am)
Paper Mario
Tetrisphere
Earth Worm Jim
F-Zero GX
Ducktales (I'm an Animator, what?)
Chip n Dale (Deal With It)
Darkwing Duck (Seriously, just let it go)
Super Adventure Island 2
Ecco the Dolphin
Metroid Prime
Ninja Gaiden
Contra
Ikaruga
Beyond Good and Evil
Eternal Darknes
Power Stone
Shenmue
Chuchu Rocket
Phantasy Star Online
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
Fire Emblem
Pickmin
Mario Sunshine
Turok
XenosagaC
Persona
Wolfenstein
Age of Empires
Diablo 2
Oblivion
Half Life (ALL of Half-Life)
Deus Ex
Quake
Starcraft - Broodwar
Dungeon Keeper
Age of Mithology
Max Payne
Dungeon Sige
Comix Zone
KOTOR
ICO
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Other M
DCK R
Bayonetta
Prince of Persia
Bioshock (Played a tiny bit of it, but never all the way thru)
Dead Rising
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Penumbra
Metroid Fusion
Uncharted
Advance Wars DS
Phoenix Wright
Profesor Layton (CANNOT WAIT)
God of War (not particularly looking forward to this one, my inner mythology nerd will rage)

This in NO WAY represents the ENTIRE list. Simply the games me and my mentors (stfu guys) were able to think up off the top of our heads. If it makes you feel better, here's a list of games I HAVE played (subject to changes if I remember any others I may have forgotten):

1. Final Fantasy VIII
2. Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2
3. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
4. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
5. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
6. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
7. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
8. Legend of Zelda: Windwaker
9. Portal
10. Portal 2
11. Left 4 Dead 2
12. Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver
13. Red Faction
14. Spyro (I love that little purple dragon, so you can go shove off if you have a problem)
15. Batman: Arkham Asylum
16. Mass Effect 1 + 2
17. Mortal Kombat
18. House of the Dead 2 (Arcade)
19. Jurassic Park  (Arcade)
20. Super Mario Bros (First released for GameBoy)