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
***-***-****
Cheers.
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