This is how not to do PR

[Evilution E5150]

this just get better and better

[Michael Coello]

You think after this year's issue after the DNF launch and the PR firm they used, everyone would know better.

[Bo Rida]

Is he trying to sound like a gangster with that Italian/Boston connections talk?

*Sigh* No wonder so many parts of the videogames industry won't mature with guys like this in a position of power.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

And things just got even better!

This is from the article about Paul possibly being roid raging:

We asked for official comment from "Brandon Leidel, Director of Marketing" using an email address with which we've previously corresponded in the past. ([e-mail]).

Hey guys,

Is Ocean Marketing a third-party agency for you guys or in-house?

Thanks!

Joel Johnson
Editorial Director, Kotaku

We got a quick reply from Brandon.

Hey Joel,

3rd party agency we were using to help us through the Holidays . I think things are a bit blown out of proportion on this today.

Brandon Leidel,
Director of Marketing
[e-mail]

Turns out that Brandon Leidel was just Paul Christoforo posing as Brandon Leidel. The following e-mail came from the REAL Brandon Leidel, and it is glorious.

Hi Joel,

I have been following this story since this morning when someone notified me about what was going on. I did not write that response to you.

Yes, in the past I received email at [e-mail] but even then we were an outsourced marketing agency for N-Control. I no longer receive email at that address because we fired N-Control as a client about 8 months ago due to constant shipping delays (which we had to deal with) and their association with Paul Cristoforo who is a street thug masquerading as a self proclaimed "Marketing Professional". This guy is a complete fool and somehow strong armed his way into working with the company so we walked away. I am not surprised in the slightest bit by what's going on right now. In fact, we told the owners of the company on many occasions that this would eventually happen.

I wasn't going to chime in but since he is replying as me, I can't resist. I personally can't stand him.

Brandon

_____________________________________________________________________

Brandon Leidel - CEO, Director of Operations
The HAND Media, Inc.

You seriously can't make this shit up!

[Mozenrath]

I foresee a fraud conviction out of this eventually.

[andrew8798]

What a story

[Cyno]

I love how his twitter name is OceanStratagy. Not only is this guy a douchebag, but he can't even spell "marketing" or "strategy" right.

[KStrick]

Maybe, to be fair, Ocean Marketing and Ocean Strategy were taken, so he did as close as he could have gotten.

Still... the PAX involvement in this makes me despise this man as a human being.

penny-arcade.com/2011/12/26/an-update1

Long and short: He tries basic masculine puffery to "a small company such as PAX". He's a supposed BIG DEAL in the gaming industry, yet he's not familiar with, not only Penny Arcade, but freaking Mike Krahulik...

And when he is finally called out for the bully he is, he immediately tries to turn himself into the victim. This asshole has the audacity to try to appeal to PA's humanity, claiming that he is, gasp, the VICTIM, and "hasn't slept from all the spam and personal information intrusion as well as my family being smeared on the internet."

That, knowing it won't work, tries to say "and don't do it for me. Do it for my wife and child."

You brought your FAMILY into this yourself in a feeble attempt to garner sympathy. Seriously. f*** you, Paul "Ocean Marketting" Christoforo.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Dec 27, 2011 18:45:57 GMT -5 KStrick said:

Maybe, to be fair, Ocean Marketing and Ocean Strategy were taken, so he did as close as he could have gotten.

Still... the PAX involvement in this makes me despise this man as a human being.

penny-arcade.com/2011/12/26/an-update1

Long and short: He tries basic masculine puffery to "a small company such as PAX". He's a supposed BIG DEAL in the gaming industry, yet he's not familiar with, not only Penny Arcade, but freaking Mike Krahulik...

And when he is finally called out for the bully he is, he immediately tries to turn himself into the victim. This asshole has the audacity to try to appeal to PA's humanity, claiming that he is, gasp, the VICTIM, and "hasn't slept from all the spam and personal information intrusion as well as my family being smeared on the internet."

That, knowing it won't work, tries to say "and don't do it for me. Do it for my wife and child."

You brought your FAMILY into this yourself in a feeble attempt to garner sympathy. Seriously. f*** you, Paul "Ocean Marketting" Christoforo.

"I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed I didn’t know how big your site was and I really didn’t believe you ran Pax"

See, this just a prime example of how, well, stupid, Paul Christoforo is. He seriously didn't believe that one of the creators of Penny Arcade ran the Penny Arcade Expo?

[Deleted]

The Penny Arcade thing is always an odd subject to me. Respect their charity work and how far they've made it and all of that, but I don't find their stuff funny at all.

[KStrick]

Dec 27, 2011 18:54:16 GMT -5 Koda, Master Crunchyroller said:

Dec 27, 2011 18:45:57 GMT -5 KStrick said:

Maybe, to be fair, Ocean Marketing and Ocean Strategy were taken, so he did as close as he could have gotten.

Still... the PAX involvement in this makes me despise this man as a human being.

penny-arcade.com/2011/12/26/an-update1

Long and short: He tries basic masculine puffery to "a small company such as PAX". He's a supposed BIG DEAL in the gaming industry, yet he's not familiar with, not only Penny Arcade, but freaking Mike Krahulik...

And when he is finally called out for the bully he is, he immediately tries to turn himself into the victim. This asshole has the audacity to try to appeal to PA's humanity, claiming that he is, gasp, the VICTIM, and "hasn't slept from all the spam and personal information intrusion as well as my family being smeared on the internet."

That, knowing it won't work, tries to say "and don't do it for me. Do it for my wife and child."

You brought your FAMILY into this yourself in a feeble attempt to garner sympathy. Seriously. f*** you, Paul "Ocean Marketting" Christoforo.

"I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed I didn’t know how big your site was and I really didn’t believe you ran Pax"

See, this just a prime example of how, well, stupid, Paul Christoforo is. He seriously didn't believe that one of the creators of Penny Arcade ran the Penny Arcade Expo?

"I didn't know how big your site was".

THAT is all you need to know about the guy. He tries to bully his way out of any situation, and, it would seem, has never learned how to apologize.

I love how even Kotaku-ites have pushed even further, posting the dude's Facebook page (though I don't support sending him anything questionable, but more as a "character study"), his old Twitter feeds, his postings on various websites... anything they can on the guy to show him for what he is.

The old axiom is dead on. You post something once on the internet, it's there forever.

[Mozenrath]

Dec 27, 2011 18:20:56 GMT -5 Cyno said:

I love how his twitter name is OceanStratagy. Not only is this guy a douchebag, but he can't even spell "marketing" or "strategy" right.

And after he made it, someone took OceanStrategy.

He WILLINGLY picked Stratagy, since he thought it was spelled that way.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Dec 27, 2011 19:02:44 GMT -5 KStrick said:

Dec 27, 2011 18:54:16 GMT -5 Koda, Master Crunchyroller said:

"I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed I didn’t know how big your site was and I really didn’t believe you ran Pax"

See, this just a prime example of how, well, stupid, Paul Christoforo is. He seriously didn't believe that one of the creators of Penny Arcade ran the Penny Arcade Expo?

"I didn't know how big your site was".

THAT is all you need to know about the guy. He tries to bully his way out of any situation, and, it would seem, has never learned how to apologize.

I love how even Kotaku-ites have pushed even further, posting the dude's Facebook page (though I don't support sending him anything questionable, but more as a "character study"), his old Twitter feeds, his postings on various websites... anything they can on the guy to show him for what he is.

The old axiom is dead on. You post something once on the internet, it's there forever.

They even found his(multiple) MySpace profiles, and even found a juicy pic of him in a hilariously bad clown costume for Halloween.

Hell, most of the things found on him was found just looking for TheAngryPimp, a user name he's apparently used on many sites(and even Xbox Live).

Also, looking at his Ocean Stratagy Twitter profile, it shows just how out of touch with things he is. Another one of the people he name dropped, Kevin Kelly, doesn't even work at G4 anymore.

It is glorious.

[Deleted]

Honestly, following this the people going after him are coming off as bigger dicks for making such a huge deal out of it. Yeah, guy's a moron, don't buy his product and move on.

[Mozenrath]

Dec 27, 2011 19:19:13 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Honestly, following this the people going after him are coming off as bigger dicks for making such a huge deal out of it. Yeah, guy's a moron, don't buy his product and move on.

I get where you are coming from, and going into his personal life is bad, but he is a scam artist, it seems, and might not have intended to ship a single thing. People like that NEED to be exposed.

[KStrick]

Dec 27, 2011 19:24:04 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Dec 27, 2011 19:19:13 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Honestly, following this the people going after him are coming off as bigger dicks for making such a huge deal out of it. Yeah, guy's a moron, don't buy his product and move on.

I get where you are coming from, and going into his personal life is bad, but he is a scam artist, it seems, and might not have intended to ship a single thing. People like that NEED to be exposed.

To be fair, he doesn't work for the company that makes these controllers. The problem is, however, that this company DOES have a history of missed deadlines. This is the sort of issue that kills a company, and they just may die because of this.

Yeah, I'm curious how long this guy will continue to fight people on Twitter. Do a better job of apologizing, and withdraw yourself from the situation.

[KStrick]

Dec 27, 2011 19:12:59 GMT -5 Koda, Master Crunchyroller said:

Dec 27, 2011 19:02:44 GMT -5 KStrick said:

"I didn't know how big your site was".

THAT is all you need to know about the guy. He tries to bully his way out of any situation, and, it would seem, has never learned how to apologize.

I love how even Kotaku-ites have pushed even further, posting the dude's Facebook page (though I don't support sending him anything questionable, but more as a "character study"), his old Twitter feeds, his postings on various websites... anything they can on the guy to show him for what he is.

The old axiom is dead on. You post something once on the internet, it's there forever.

They even found his(multiple) MySpace profiles, and even found a juicy pic of him in a hilariously bad clown costume for Halloween.

Hell, most of the things found on him was found just looking for TheAngryPimp, a user name he's apparently used on many sites(and even Xbox Live).

Also, looking at his Ocean Stratagy Twitter profile, it shows just how out of touch with things he is. Another one of the people he name dropped, Kevin Kelly, doesn't even work at G4 anymore.

It is glorious.

Wait, bud.... former WWF Kevin Kelly? I don't have G4 here (and probably wouldn't watch it, as HUGE of a nerd as I am, if I did...)

Yeah, the guy does scream unbelievable douche. And it is refreshing to see him receive his comeuppance. However, I just pray it ends here before reading of something tragic. I have no faith in the guy as a human being, but he DOES have a fiancee and a child. Once he is inevitably fired from this position (if he hasn't already, and I'll be absolutely shocked if he hasn't, yet), I'm not sure how his "family" will make due unless the fiancee has a job.

[Michael Coello]

To be a bit of the devil's advocate, I never knew Penny Arcade was such a big deal in gaming, either.

[Mozenrath]

Dec 27, 2011 19:38:05 GMT -5 Michael Coello said:

To be a bit of the devil's advocate, I never knew Penny Arcade was such a big deal in gaming, either.

Oh, HUGE. It gets the word out on many games people might otherwise not hear about. Also, after E3 stopped being, uhh, good, they took the helm with PAX, with his a huge event in gaming each year.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Dec 27, 2011 19:42:26 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Dec 27, 2011 19:38:05 GMT -5 Michael Coello said:

To be a bit of the devil's advocate, I never knew Penny Arcade was such a big deal in gaming, either.

Oh, HUGE. It gets the word out on many games people might otherwise not hear about. Also, after E3 stopped being, uhh, good, they took the helm with PAX, with his a huge event in gaming each year.

And of course, they created Child's Play, the biggest charity in the industry, and their yearly charity auction dinner at end of each year is filled with most of the major people in the industry.

Penny Arcade is without a doubt the most influential webcomic to ever be created.