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Penny-Arcade: "Marketers of the Avenger Controller are thieves and liars".

Zomba13

Zomba13

Member
Parallax Scroll said:
God DAMN. I take back the small amount of sympathy I had for Paul Christoforo yesterday. The half apology he gave on yesterday's podcast was a complete fucking lie. This dude is as scummy as they get.
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Same.

He may be sorry for what's happened (this whole thing blowing up in his face) but he doesn't seem to have learnt anything. He's still being a douche.

That is if this is true. I mean, it probably is but this time we've only got one side (the new PR guy who seems cool and is doing a great job). I wonder if anyone will ask Paul about this in one of the many many interviews he has lined up. I also wonder if people are going to try and contact Dave to see what he thinks of all this.
 
K

KageMaru

Member
echoshifting said:
Doesn't justify his actions, of course, or his mentality here. He's a loathsome human being. Absolutely vile.
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What I find horrifying is that he's reproducing. Not only do I fear for the well being of his child but I'd hate to see how that child will develop under Paul's care and guidance.
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
br0ken_shad0w said:
Moisés Chiullan did the adverts for the Alamo Drafthouse (if you live in Texas, it's one of the best theaters around):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3eeC2lJZs
http://youtu.be/z98vawSOlK4 (Patton Oswalt version)

So at least someone competent is on their marketing side. Now it remains to be seen if they can fix whatever problems are on the supply side.
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Interesting. I did not know that. I love those those videos and their policy on that. I wish more theaters would follow their lead.
 
M

mbmonk

Member
So Paul makes a power play against N-Control...

Short Term: Paul might get some quick cash.

Long Term: Nobody is going to hire him because he holds key assets of the customer hostage in order to extort them for cash.

I would just suggest him moving to a new line of work immediately. Don't bother trying to stay in the industry. He needs to go to an industry where nobody has ever heard of him. Because it's going to be hard to argue the case for hiring Paul if you do a decent amount background research.

plagiarize said:
his wife doesn't have to stay married to him. she'd easily get custody of the kid too i'm sure. i won't be surprised if it actually comes to pass. Paul's problems are entirely his fault, and she's hurting because of them. AMPLE grounds for divorce.
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I hope he wakes up before he loses his family. That, of course, is in no ones best interest. Sadly, he isn't showing any signs of that.

EDIT: Props to the PR guy for coming clean to the public about the reviews, but screw the owner condoning it much less doing it himself in the first place. It all is starting to make sense why Paul was a part of the team. *I am assuming the the owner didn't disclose his relationship to the product in those planted reviews.*
 
J

Jobiensis

Member
I'm amazed that he actually thinks he can not give control of the domains back to N-Control. He really is setting himself up to being sued. Although I bet he won't get sued, because it's painfully obvious he's not in a good position financially.
 
P

Parallax Scroll

Banned
A lot of good info on that reddit AMA.


jnatale said:
What about Paul Christoforo and Ocean Marketing appealed to you in the first place that made you decide they were the people you wanted to do your marketing?
Click to expand...

moiseschiu said:
I have to clarify that I didn't make that decision. I've worked for these guys for 48 hours. What David Kotkin (the owner) told me is what I believe: they only had so much money, and this guy was offering to do lots of jobs for the price of one. He was driving solid hard sales early on, so they gave him a shot. He had a compelling personal story, growing up on the hard-knock streets and so on. He talked a good game, and by the time things got uncomfortable, they tolerated what was mostly interpersonal differences rather than jeopardize the whole business by dumping him, since so many things were in his hands.

They rolled the dice and got snake eyes.
Click to expand...
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Jobiensis said:
I'm amazed that he actually thinks he can not give control of the domains back to N-Control. He really is setting himself up to being sued. Although I bet he won't get sued, because it's painfully obvious he's not in a good position financially.
Click to expand...

I think we're moving past lawsuit towards criminal charges. Extortion is a serious crime.

KageMaru said:
What I find horrifying is that he's reproducing. Not only do I fear for the well being of his child but I'd hate to see how that child will develop under Paul's care and guidance.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain that isn't his biological child. On his old public Facebook page he always referred to him as his "fiancee's son."

So, the poor kid may have to endure his child-rearing (though perhaps not for long), but at least he dodged that gene pool trap. I think.
 
S

scy

Member
Parallax Scroll said:
A lot of good info on that reddit AMA.
Click to expand...

Indeed:

I've been very hands off with Mike and co. I'd rather they like what they see in advance of me talking with them directly than hassle them like the vast majority of publicists work. My approach is very different for a reason, and I think it will work out.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, he appears to not have the same depth in his contacts that Paul brought to the table:

I know zero Mayors. Gotta fix that.
Click to expand...

Edit:

echoshifting said:
I think we're moving past lawsuit towards criminal charges. Extortion is a serious crime.
Click to expand...

Yeah. We have this extortion here and the apparent real slander he tried to pull with the $35,000 theft accusation against Brandon Leidel. Oh dear, Paul. Oh dear.
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
I once sat a few tables away from Willie Brown in a soul food restaurant when he was still Mayor of San Francisco several years ago, maybe I should consider a lucrative PR career.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Gary Whitta said:
I once sat a few tables away from Willie Brown in a soul food restaurant when he was still Mayor of San Francisco several years ago, maybe I should consider a lucrative PR career.
Click to expand...

i have a certificate of recognition from the ex governor of MA, Mitt Romney.

i keep it face down in my desk drawer.

this is entirely true.
 
A

Aselith

Member
Gary Whitta said:
I once sat a few tables away from Willie Brown in a soul food restaurant when he was still Mayor of San Francisco several years ago, maybe I should consider a lucrative PR career.
Click to expand...

You know one guy and think you can work in PR? Probably not even from FUCKING BOSTON! More like Boss Town, amirite? BUT NO you got to know everyone, son, everyone! I know CliffyD, fucking Mike Kryhilchek, fucking shit I probably know this Mayor of San Franssico cat and didn't EVEN KNOW cause I know so many motherfuckers up in this BITCH. You want to take a run at PR, first you need to take a run at the king. ME!
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Aselith said:
You know one guy and think you can work in PR? Probably not even from FUCKING BOSTON! More like Boss Town, amirite? BUT NO you got to know everyone, son, everyone! I know CliffyD, fucking Mike Kryhilchek, fucking shit I probably know this Mayor of San Franssico cat and didn't EVEN KNOW cause I know so many motherfuckers up in this BITCH. You want to take a run at PR, first you need to take a run at the king. ME!
Click to expand...

Oooo Gary you just got told
 
G

GotEmRunnin

Member
Aselith said:
You know one guy and think you can work in PR? Probably not even from FUCKING BOSTON! More like Boss Town, amirite? BUT NO you got to know everyone, son, everyone! I know CliffyD, fucking Mike Kryhilchek, fucking shit I probably know this Mayor of San Franssico cat and didn't EVEN KNOW cause I know so many motherfuckers up in this BITCH. You want to take a run at PR, first you need to take a run at the king. ME!
Click to expand...

And here endeth the lesson...
 
A

Ace Harding

Member
Has anyone seen a good "mainstream press" article on this that explains the whole thing to someone who doesn't know the gaming industry and hasn't been following the story? Looking to send it to a non-gaming PR exec friend.
 
O

Owlowiscious

Member
I'm too lazy to look at other websites about this. If the new PR guy ever comments on the (what I understand are) manufacturing delays on making the avenger mods, I hope someone posts about it here. I'm curious if it's true that the controller mod has several instances of delays, and the reasons behind them.
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
Owlowiscious said:
I'm too lazy to look at other websites about this. If the new PR guy ever comments on the (what I understand are) manufacturing delays on making the avenger mods, I hope someone posts about it here> I'm curious if it's true that the controller mod has several instances of delays.
Click to expand...

Yup. It's a case of they honestly didn't have a clue what they were doing and over promised a ton and under delivered. That's one of the things that earned them some respect back. They could have made excuses but didn't. They said they are working on fixing their mistakes and keeping customers more up to date and working on being more transparent about what is going on with orders.
 
S

Subitai

Member
So, I just read this interview at Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2011/12/29/from-control-to-ko-paul-christoforo-interviewed/

What jumped out at me is he isn't truely sorry or changing his behavior. He's doing PR (he sounds like a different person in the interview which makes Mike come off looking like the big bad bully) and brushing over what happened and is considering pressing defamation charges at PA?! Is he nuts? There is just too much trash he's left on the net. Anyway, what jumped out to me was this:

Forbes: There have been a lot of things going on in the last hours. How do you think you’ve managed it? In particular, you’ve moved your Twitter account a couple of times, for example. How is it going, in terms of your personal brand?


PC: I mean, I’m all right. There’s a lot of bad stuff on me right now, but today was a pretty good day. MSNBC put a real favourable piece up on me, there are a couple of radio interviews that I’m going to do, Spike TV’s going to come to my house on Monday to shoot a piece on me.
Click to expand...
I missed yesterday, is anything in his reply true?
 
P

Parallax Scroll

Banned
QfuBU.jpg
 
M

mbmonk

Member
N-Control definitely "rolled the dice" with Paul. The question is did they have to because of tight financial reasons or because they thought they could save some cash?

N-Control's side
I have to clarify that I didn't make that decision. I've worked for these guys for 48 hours. What David Kotkin (the owner) told me is what I believe: they only had so much money, and this guy was offering to do lots of jobs for the price of one.
Click to expand...

Hand Media's side
Eventually, Leidel decided to walk away from what he called a lucrative marketing contract over Christoforo's behavior.
Click to expand...

Also the fact that Paul was doing "the work of many for the price of one" now sheds some light on why he tried to put customer assets under his control. I imagine he really was holding those things hostage in case something just like this went down, and he was wanting to get paid, either fairly or unfairly, for the work he probably felt like he had performed and yet wasn't going to compensated for.

I am currently not feeling N-Controls side of this story, or at least I am not feeling overly sympathetic for them.

EDIT: Also Paul had obviously been working with N-Control for some time before he got put in charge of marketing. Knowing what little we know of Paul do we really think his behavior changed significantly after he received the promotion? His whole career has come tumbling down and that hasn't changed him one bit. So any 'interpersonal issues' probably could have been seen by N-Control before they promoted him. The tear in my eye for N-Control is quickly evaporating.
 
H

Hoffer

Neo Member
I just learned about this story today. Been reading articles on it for the last hour. What a mess this guy is.

I was seeing all these mentions of Ocean Marketting in my twitter feed the other day and had no clue what it was about.
 
A

Axion22

Member
Owlowiscious said:
I'm too lazy to look at other websites about this. If the new PR guy ever comments on the (what I understand are) manufacturing delays on making the avenger mods, I hope someone posts about it here. I'm curious if it's true that the controller mod has several instances of delays, and the reasons behind them.
Click to expand...

Moises (new PR guy) posted about that in the Reddit AMA. He's still trying to get to the bottom of it. The PS3 version is a brand new product, so it really did get stuck in customs, since it's never been through before.

He's trying to get to the bottom of what the customers were told to expect & why the expectations weren't met still, though.
 
A

Azih

Member
Gary Whitta said:
I once sat a few tables away from Willie Brown in a soul food restaurant when he was still Mayor of San Francisco several years ago, maybe I should consider a lucrative PR career.
Click to expand...

So what you're saying you had dinner with the Mayor of San Francisco?
 
S

Subitai

Member
Owlowiscious said:
He was in a webcast yesterday. That might be what he meant by radio interview.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

I found the MSNBC articles, but I didn't find them very favorable for him.

Going after the wife and kid is lame, but it is not clear what it will take for him to change his behavior even after all this. Basically he thinks he accidentally picked the wrong internet person to fight with and wasn't given any warning (when in fact he was). He is still not saying anything like:

"I have been disrespectful and offensive in the past and have not treated people with the attention they deserve. I now understand that treating people as though they're lesser than me and just throwing out lies about myself to boost my personal prestige as well as outright copying the website work of others and passing it off as my own will just not be tolerated by the gaming community. I resolve to change my behavior and I welcome the monitoring of the community that I have so gravely offended."

Nope. Everyone else is unprofessional, and he was overworked and slipped up with the wrong two people. His threats and lies were just comments/jokes taken out of context. Who is he kidding!?

The thing is, there are thousands of jerks like this guy who would never admit that they find his behavior acceptable. If it takes this guy being made an example to make them alter their treatment of others for our benefit, I think it would be worth it.
 
M

mbmonk

Member
Going back to the planted review confession by N-Control, is it possible the reason it had to be made public was because N-Control was afraid that Paul was going to spill the beans, and therefore they wanted to get out ahead of the story and take that card out of Paul's deck?
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
mbmonk said:
Going back to the planted review confession by N-Control, is it possible the reason it had to be made public was because N-Control was afraid that Paul was going to spill the beans, and therefore they wanted to get out ahead of the story and take that card out of Paul's deck?
Click to expand...

That might be part of it. The new guy seems to be operating on the basis of airing out as much as possible. In addition to helping to regain trust, it also helps to mitigate problems in the future. Being the ones to disclose it lets them do it on their terms and prevent ugly disclosures down the road.

That Reddit AMA was a fantastic read. Between that and the PR, the new guy is clearly on the ball. Seems like a good guy beyond his PR skills; of course, that might also be his PR skills. Paul keeps coming out as more and more of a self-destructive bully and all around asshole. Which is impressive considering the past few days.
 
F

Freeza Under The Shower

Member
GhaleonEB said:
That might be part of it. The new guy seems to be operating on the basis of airing out as much as possible. In addition to helping to regain trust, it also helps to mitigate problems in the future. Being the ones to disclose it lets them do it on their terms and prevent ugly disclosures down the road.

That Reddit AMA was a fantastic read. Between that and the PR, the new guy is clearly on the ball. Seems like a good guy beyond his PR skills; of course, that might also be his PR skills. Paul keeps coming out as more and more of a self-destructive bully and all around asshole. Which is impressive considering the past few days.
Click to expand...

That probably is his PR skill. A good thing to have in this case though.

Also, I really don't understand how reddit works. I feel old now. :(

(edit: the fact that someone claimed to be "using this as a case in a business book" was hilarious but also quite absurd. On the scale of things, this really is not that big a deal. It looks like it, because there is a clear 'villain' and clear 'victims', but the business itself is relatively small. As a business case, it wouldn't do much other than illustrate that things can go viral on the internet and have certain effects to it. But that's about it, I think. I mean: BP causing an oil spill of which the effects will be felt for years in the real world, not just the internet, by faulty policy is a much bigger case to study and relates to both real-world and virtual effects. ... meh. )
 
Zomba13

Zomba13

Member
Kosh said:
I'll just leave this here with the bullying mob.

http://www.punchingsnakes.com/?p=554
Click to expand...

Gave it a skim. Stopped altogether when they got mad about Mike posting the companies contact info (Paul's stupid fault if he used his companies contact details as his own).

And what the fuck is that about death threats being part of Gamer culture? No, it's part of fucked up stupid internet culture. People send 'death threats' over twitter and youtube for fucking anything. I may have got one on a shitty youtube video I did on my old youtube account.
 
O

onadesertedisland

Member
Are the apologists retaining their position because they feel sympathy for Paul or they can relate to his lunacy?

I sometimes feel that when people defend behavior like this it is an indication that they themselves might act similarly.
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
Aselith said:
Most of those points have been brought up and refuted in this very thread.

No evidence of death threats except a CLAIM by a liar but that he didn't report to the police...why?

Also, the info Mike put out there was business contact info.
Click to expand...

Of course they have but there has to be that one person or so who still thinks everyone's being so mean to him. Time and time again there hasn't been one shred of proof that his family themselves have been threatened. He's even said there has been nothing really threatened that he can go to the police with. That's ok though the defenders won't let facts stop them from continuing to defend him against the "Evil Mob".
 
W

wildfire

Banned
Kosh said:
I'll just leave this here with the bullying mob.

http://www.punchingsnakes.com/?p=554
Click to expand...


Congratulations, you just posted the diatribe of a smug self-important jerk. He was on the mark about the lighthearted approach rape is treated in the gaming culture. I even agree that Mike could've handled the public admonishing of Paul differently. But his attempt to highlight that this incident with Paul is just another example of how gamers can be insensitive and dicks is completely divorced from reality.What happened here is just another example of a cultural group enforcing polite behavior. He should look up the word mores.

Paul was going against the grain of what is acceptable behavior when doing a business transaction and failed to muster up an apology in time.
 
A

Aruarian Reflection

Chauffeur de la gdlk
onadesertedisland said:
Are the apologists retaining their position because they feel sympathy for Paul or they can relate to his lunacy?

I sometimes feel that when people defend behavior like this it is an indication that they themselves might act similarly.
Click to expand...

At least one apologist in the first 10 or so pages admitted that he himself has acted unprofessionally towards customers and brushed it off as no big deal. I'd say the apologists are either assholes themselves or contrarians trolling for a reaction.
 
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