More online justice

[Andrew]

Basically, a Penny Arcade reader received some jaw-droppingly unprofessional customer service in a series of emails which you can check out here. It culminates in Mr PR taking potshots at Penny Arcade and insinuating he's a much bigger deal than them, namedropping all kinds of connections that promptly denied agreeing with or even knowing him.

As expected, it didn't go well. Kotaku also has a recap here and the guy is trying to clear his name.

This being the Internet, we already have a video send-up of the situation:

phpBB [video]

And of course, inspiration for the latest Penny Arcade comic.

[koberulz]

The apology is the most ridiculous part of this. As Gabe said, it's very 'I'm sorry I got caught', even explicitly mentioning that he wouldn't have behaved in that manner if he'd known whom he was speaking to, and then he goes and accuses Gabe of being unprofessional. The 'roid rage suggestion on Kotaku just takes this to a whole new level...and then you find out he's done this before.

What a wanker.

[Andrew]

It's definitely an eye-rolling non-apology. I agree that there's no good reason to bring his family into the situation (if indeed they exist) but his attempts to portray himself as a victim are laughable. The damage that's been done to his career is his own fault, because reputation matters and word of mouth can go a long way in making or breaking a business. As a supposed PR guru, you'd think he'd know that.

[koberulz]

Thing is, he expects this word of mouth to make his business, not break it. Whatever he's on, I want some.

[Andrew]

He's banking heavily on any publicity being good publicity but that's wishful thinking to say the least. No company with any shred of common sense is going to want to have anything to do with him.

[koberulz]

Bischoff might find him a job...

[Andrew]

Indeed, TNA's new President of PR & Marketing. Watch out, WWE!

[koberulz]

Belief that controversy is more important than anything else? Check.
Desire to piss off the internet? Check.
Inability to write worth a damn? Check.
Not interested in what fans/customers want? Check.

It'd be more surprising if it doesn't happen.

[Oznogrd]

Yeah i read this as it was happening over twitter response yesterday.

Why the hell would you trust a third party with marketing? It just doesn't seem to make any sense from the Avenger controller standpoint..

Also if your'e going to name drop PAX you'd think you know 1. It meant Penny Arcade 2. That gabes real name isnt gabe.

[Andrew]

I'm guessing at some point, he bullied his way onto the scene with a decent sales pitch about making things easier and/or having all these connections.

[123rockstar]

Justice served him well. Wouldnt it be great if he had called and recorded the whole conversation? Sweet

[Andrew]

Mr PR probably would've actually had a case then, given the various laws against recording phone calls without consent.

[koberulz]

Which state is Dave in? Some only require one party to know about the recording.

[Andrew]

Massachusetts, I believe.

[koberulz]

Massachusetts requires all parties consent to the recording, so yeah, that would've been an issue.

[benji]

That's Paul from Ocean Marketting in Mass., not Dave.

Why the hell would you trust a third party with marketing?

It's actually more common than not in the gaming industry at least. Only the major companies and smaller private companies run their own marketing, the rest all outsource it.

I'm guessing at some point, he bullied his way onto the scene with a decent sales pitch about making things easier and/or having all these connections.

I think it was more likely he was referred to them by the Mayor of Boston.

[Andrew]

Or someone from IGN, yeah.

That's Paul from Ocean Marketting in Mass., not Dave.

That's who I was referring to, I figured koberulz was as well.

[koberulz]

No, I did mean the customer (because he'd have to be the one recording the calls for rockstar's post to make sense) but it doesn't really matter. If one of them is in a two-party consent state, then two-party consent is required, even if the one doing the recording is in a one-party consent state.

[Andrew]

If one of them is in a two-party consent state, then two-party consent is required, even if the one doing the recording is in a one-party consent state.

Exactly.

Glanced at his "apology" again and it's even worse the second read through. It's hilarious that he claims that this is winning him popularity; I think he's confusing the term with notoriety and in this case, it's not a good thing.

[benji]

[Andrew]

[benji]

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/04/09/my-big-pax-post

Well we’ve put another incredible PAX to bed. I’ve been asked to comment on a few of the stories that came out of the show this year. It seems that after three days of games, music and community what people people keep asking me about is the guy who took off his pants, and boobs. I’ll go ahead and give you my take on both of those but first I want to talk about the other story that is making the rounds. That being our trolling of Paul Christoforo.

THE PRANK

You might remember Paul as the guy from Ocean Marketing who self destructed on the internet a few months ago. What you might not know is that in the intervening months Paul has continued to harass me and PA via his twitter. He claimed that he would be coming to the show, regardless of the fact that he was banned. He threatened us and said he would be at PAX East in disguise. When the show finally arrived he began posting photos from the floor claiming he was here and that he took the pics himself. The only problem with that is that his phone was also tweeting his location…which happened to be in California.

On Saturday Paul befriended a con goer from his hometown on twitter. What Paul did not know is that this guy, along with growing up in the same town Paul did, was also a security guard at the PAX convention center. This guard is a huge gamer and he immediately came to us after starting up this conversation with Paul. First we attempted to set up a meeting here in Boston but obviously Paul said he couldn’t do it. Then Mr. Christoforo asked his new best friend to send him some photos from the show floor. We took the pictures ourselves but before we sent them to Paul Robert created a new Twitter account and uploaded all the pics.

They were then sent to Paul and sure enough he began tweeting them as his own. He posted all of our pictures claiming that they were taken on his iPhone and even dared people to find the duplicates. He bragged that he had gotten past all of our enforcers and that he was in fact in the show. I actually felt a twinge of guilt as I watched the man dig himself deeper and deeper into a hole. That passed quickly though as I remembered all the violent and racist threats he made towards Robert and I.

At this point I went to my own Twitter, pointing out “his” latest photos and then linking people to the originals we took. A quick look at the time stamps was all it took to see that they had obviously been posted hours before Paul ever claimed them as his own. I have to admit this was not as satisfying as it could have been simply because Paul didn’t understand what had happened. After about an hour, people stopped simply laughing at him and instead were trying to explain to him what had transpired. At first he tried to claim that someone else must have been following him around the show and taking the exact same pictures. Eventually he seemed to realize the extent to which he had been fooled and he simply began raging against anyone and everyone he could find on Twitter.

At lunch the next day I was explaining all this to the rest of the PA crew. After the story Erika said something that I think sums it up nicely. She said, “I love working for a company where revenge is always an option.”

[Andrew]

phpBB [video]

Masterful.