I’m not going to pile onto the events mentioned at PA today. What really surprises me is how quickly the guy (Paul) got nasty to people. I get abusive emails on a near daily basis (Ranging from “you suck” to “I hope you get cancer and die!”). It’s not a matter of having a “thick skin” even, it’s just a matter of picking your battles. What exactly was there to get mad about?
And on a side note, how do you get into gaming PR and not know about Penny Arcade???
Oh, yeah.... The arrogance of that guy is something that says to me 'never buy any product from OM'.
How can that even be real? Did they hire their PR guy straight from the psych ward?
It's also amazing how fast this has spread. Even my wife heard about it and she's not (sadly) a gamer.
Hence the cause. Everyone assumed he knew about them, so no one bothered to properly educated the ivy league moron on his industry players.
Stupid people that graduate from college are so fun.
Not if you're the one who actually held them to reasonable standards and ended up in an academic version of the email chain quoted over at Penny Arcade (with Dave as the instructor and Ocean Marketing as the student). Game controllers are products and people buying them are customers. Students are neither of those things, yet so many students and 'education industry' workers act otherwise.
Mainly, though, I have to say that this seems like something that will end up in case study chunks in more than a few business textbooks. It might do equally useful service in net etiquette manuals, especially in sections devoted to the general point that It's Not Yours After You Send or Post It. For a marketing person in the game gear business to be ignorant of Penny Arcade is perhaps forgivable, but to be ignorant of how easily what you type can spread to parts unknown--well, that sounds like a very good reason to fire someone with no severance package.
He just couldn't let Dave do that.
What's that movie with Liv Tyler and Ben Afleck in it where Ben Afleck publically trashes his client and is out of work for 8 years?
When I read it, I was just amazed, shocked, stunned. Not just because something like that happened, but because it did at a level higher than the corner store or an internet forum. I've seen/made PR mistakes by the bucket load in the past, but this... this is just being hostile and mean to the costumer for no reason.
In my country, that kind of behavior is sadly all too common, we even had a word for such a person "meltean" a sort of combination between scumbag and douchebag. Seeing it happen in other parts of the world is a bit sad.
How does a person like that manage to rise to the top of a PR marketing company?
If you're namedropping to appear important, you're not important.
Edit: PA hits for this week according to alexa: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/penny-arcade.com so it really is reaching a lot more people than just his readers.
Justice me thinks
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/29/ocean-marketing-press-release/
Don't fuck with nerds.
You got that right!
Cause it is a one man operation.
Damage control and hopefully the manufacturer has learned a valuable lesson.
wow... this was off my radar and I just read everything through the venturebeat articles... wow again...
I just wish there was an ending to the story. Maybe the PR guy gets fired and ends up working for Dave as his butler for a few months?
There is a ending... and the PR guy was fired...
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/27/ocean-marketing-how-to-self-destruct-your-company-with-just-a-few-measly-emails/2/
http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/28/9770514-chastened-gaming-rep-responds-to-internet-infamy
If people was able to travel as fast that "news" on the internet, we will be able to reach other stars in no time...
What's amazing is the guy is really unrepentant. Primarily he's sorry (and pissed) that he got caught but arrogant as ever and casting blame more on everyone else than himself.
Sorry for his wife and kid. He's a total fail at learning a lesson in humility.
Honestly, I'm worried the guy is going to kill himself. Certainly sounded quite a bit unstable.
Yeah--he's pretty symptomatic of a guy with issues--and he has a wife and young kid. Sigh. Can't we all just get along?
The guy deserves everything he got, and not because I'm in a "champion of the weak customers" mood.
Pretty fair and obvious outcome, the guy won't be missed.
Oh, he certainly deserved to lose his job over his terrible business practices, to be sure.
I have long tried to answer the question: What is to be done with bad people?
Wish there was a some higher being to sort these bits out...
Sean, I'm right here!
Higher being, not being high.
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