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.