Ocean Marketing vs Internet (Hint Ocean Marketing won’t win)
Insulting customers and picking a fight with Penny Arcade all whilst claiming that Kotaku and IGN has your back when really they totally don’t? Probably not a good idea.
Ocean Marketing is a PR company that is working with N-Control to promote their Avenger controller, an add on that helps disabled gamers enjoy our past time. Instead of assisting customers and positively promoting a product, you know the things PR companies are supposed to do, this representative by the name of Paul Christoforo bashes and insults a customer who is simply asking when the product will be shipped to him. The customer, known only as Dave, wanted to know when his product which he had already paid for in full would ship.
The original release date was early December. Since that had already passed the customer wanted to know when he could expect the product, as one of them was to be a Christmas gift. That’s right the customer had not only ordered one but two of the product that Ocean Marketing represented and paid in full. In response he got more and more vague responses until Paul, from Ocean Marketing, erupted in a inflammatory email to the customer. Complete with misspelling, lack of grammar or sentence structure and misplaced arrogance it read like a common internet troll, not a paid professional.
It devolves from there including saying that multiple groups from IGN, Kotaku and PAX had his back. When in fact they did not. Not for the lack of Paul doing his best to woo them. After the insults the customer copies in Penny Arcade’s Mike Krahulik, better known as Gabe, which prompts Gabe to follow up with an email of his own. The whole thing first elicits insults from Paul until he realizes that Mike is the co-founder of Penny Arcade. At this point he attempts to backpedal and once he realizes it doesn’t work goes on the offensive again, threatening a smear campaign against Penny Arcade. Yeah good luck with that.
The whole exchange can be read here on Penny Arcade’s site. It’s lengthy, but entertaining, especially if you like internet drama. Get your popcorn ready folks this is going to get interesting.