Penny Arcade recently published a chain of emails between one of its readers and Ocean Marketing, a company responsible for a range of third party peripherals. The customer, known as Dave, pre-ordered a pair of PS3 controllers that were due before Christmas, and sent an email to Paul Christoforo after more than a month of silence.
Christoforo’s response was simply “December 17,” when asked where the controllers were, by a customer already unhappy he was expected to pay full price for a preorder. When Dave followed this up, he was told the product had not yet shipped from China, before then being told the pre-Christmas delivery was no longer guaranteed. Christoforo became increasingly unprofessional, telling his customer to put on a “big boy hat” and deal with it. When Dave threatened to make the correspondence public, Paul unleashed the fury of the Gods in return.
“LOL Thanks for the Free PR I know the Editor N Chief of Kotaku , IGN , Engadget I’ll be meeting them at CES,” he said. “… Send that over to Engadget you look like a complete moron swearing and sending your customer service complaints to a magazine as if they will post it or even pay attention do you think you’re the first or the last what are they going to do demand us to tell you were your shipment is or ask for a refund on your behalf … Really … Welcome to the Internet?
“Son Im 38 I wwebsite as on the internet when you were a sperm in your daddys balls and before it was the internet, thanks for the welcome to message wurd up. Grow up you look like a complete child bro. I Don’t have my controller so im gonna cry to the world … Really ?? Hey take that free time and do something more productive. All you had to do was check the like everyone else , people have inquired but you’re the douchiest of them all.”
Once Mike Krahulik stepped into the email chain, things went from embarrassing to pathetic, as Christoforo demonstrated he had no idea who ran PAX, attempted to make fun of the show’s organizer for being a nobody, then claimed he’d be at PAX anyway, despite Mike telling him no. Just read the email chain, it’s the perfect breakfast compliment.
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that the man in charge of a “premier social media company” can be so combative with consumers and trade show organizers, or the fact that he can’t seem to spell for shit. Either way, Christoforo’s confidence that nobody would take Dave’s complaint seriously is unfounded, since Penny Arcade went to bat for him, Twitter is aflame with people making fun of Ocean’s juvenile behavior, and other blogs are fast relaying the hilarious tale.
Furthermore, IGN‘s Scott Lowe distanced himself from Ocean, stating for the record that IGN did not support the company and that his brief dealings with Christoforo were quite unprofessional. Naturally, Christoforo demonstrated his professional behavior once more.
“your a douchebag anyway Scott we sent you how many units for review ,” he replied. “How many conversations You were the unprofessional one.”
You know a situation is bad when a guy is acting worse to one of his customers than I’d act to one of my readers, even after they’ve called be Mr. Bad Journalist Fat Tits. The infantile drivel spewing from this man’s fingertips is of the level one would expect in the GameFAQs forums, not from a professional businessman.
In any case, Ocean’s doing a fantastic job of alienating itself from gamers and press alike, right before a major product launch from a client that may very well fire it after this mess. While I’ve never had the dubious pleasure of working with this company before, I have the tremendous pleasure of saying that I definitely won’t in future.
A round of applause for the greatest PR move in gaming today!
