Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 27, 2011 19:48:04 GMT -5
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. Indeed. It's not like if this was CTRL+Alt+Dlt.
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Post by Michael Coello on Dec 27, 2011 19:57:47 GMT -5
Call me a bad gamer, I guess, cause I never though of Penny Arcade as revolutionary in any way. Good, yes, but not revolutionary or as the most influential comic ever. Also, I never heard of Child's Play, and PAX still seems new to me.
Yeah, the guy probably should have known these people for their efforts, but they never seemed like names the size of Nintendo or SEGA or Sony or whatever.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 27, 2011 20:00:23 GMT -5
Call me a bad gamer, I guess, cause I never though of Penny Arcade as revolutionary in any way. Good, yes, but not revolutionary or as the most influential comic ever. Also, I never heard of Child's Play, and PAX still seems new to me. Yeah, the guy probably should have known these people for their efforts, but they never seemed like names the size of Nintendo or SEGA or Sony or whatever. You're not a bad gamer, but if you never knew about these things, you are out of the loop. If he is in the industry of games, and doesn't know these things, he's ill informed. It's like that one woman who was hired by WWE and didn't bother to learn who Stephanie McMahon was.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 27, 2011 20:03:44 GMT -5
Call me a bad gamer, I guess, cause I never though of Penny Arcade as revolutionary in any way. Good, yes, but not revolutionary or as the most influential comic ever. Also, I never heard of Child's Play, and PAX still seems new to me. Yeah, the guy probably should have known these people for their efforts, but they never seemed like names the size of Nintendo or SEGA or Sony or whatever. Well yeah, they aren't that big of a name, because they are still a webcomic at the end of the day. You have to read webcomics to have even heard of them. Nintendo, Sega, and Sony are bigger names because they actually make games. Still, the Penny Arcade guys are basically walking deities to the gaming media in North America, so if you run afoul of them, you run afoul of all of the journalistic publications.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Dec 27, 2011 20:04:02 GMT -5
Count me among those who've never found Penny Arcade to be the greatest webcomic ever. It's certainly influential, and I've laughed at it a few times, but I've discovered too many others that just blow it out of the water (Lackadaisy, for one).
However, this Paul guy is a toolprick of the highest order, and good job by the PA boys on taking him down a notch. I'm shocked he even got past an internship with that attitude.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 27, 2011 20:05:47 GMT -5
It's not about being the funniest here, as there are funnier ones, but given how long lasting it's been, and how BIG its readership is, getting a mention by them can make a title.
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jagilki
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Posts: 33,594
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Post by jagilki on Dec 27, 2011 20:32:10 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Dec 27, 2011 20:42:24 GMT -5
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Post by Red Impact on Dec 27, 2011 20:53:59 GMT -5
So according to Analog's link, while this has been marketed as a gamer's controller, it was really invented so a disabled kid in his class could play videogames?
Yeah, even with the delays, I sort of have to admire him. I mean, yeha, he may not know how to run a company, but the good intentions are there, and he just got unfortunate enough to hire a really bad marketing firm.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 27, 2011 22:15:43 GMT -5
So according to Analog's link, while this has been marketed as a gamer's controller, it was really invented so a disabled kid in his class could play videogames? Yeah, even with the delays, I sort of have to admire him. I mean, yeha, he may not know how to run a company, but the good intentions are there, and he just got unfortunate enough to hire a really bad marketing firm. Paul Christoforo has nothing to do with the controller. He's the PR man. The company making the controller, N-Control, hired him.
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Post by Red Impact on Dec 27, 2011 22:21:33 GMT -5
So according to Analog's link, while this has been marketed as a gamer's controller, it was really invented so a disabled kid in his class could play videogames? Yeah, even with the delays, I sort of have to admire him. I mean, yeha, he may not know how to run a company, but the good intentions are there, and he just got unfortunate enough to hire a really bad marketing firm. Paul Christoforo has nothing to do with the controller. He's the PR man. The company making the controller, N-Control, hired him. I suppose I didn't make it clear, I was talking about the N-Control guy. The company was getting flack for all the delays as well the action of the Christoforo, who according to the link Analog posted, was fired.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 27, 2011 22:26:34 GMT -5
Paul Christoforo has nothing to do with the controller. He's the PR man. The company making the controller, N-Control, hired him. I suppose I didn't make it clear, I was talking about the N-Control guy. The company was getting flack for all the delays as well the action of the Christoforo, who according to the link Analog posted, was fired. Ah, yeah. You can't really blame them for the delays, I guess, because look at the controller in question, it is way more complicatedly put together compared to normal controllers. It must be a bitch to manufacture. I do feel bad for N-Control, though, as the controller does look like it works, damn shame they picked such a shitty PR firm.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 27, 2011 23:16:50 GMT -5
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Dec 28, 2011 4:42:22 GMT -5
Honestly makes me wish some other peripheral maker like MadCatz or PDP or whathaveyou would pick up the patent/rights to this controller, because I do feel it should be on the market.
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Post by KStrick on Dec 28, 2011 4:55:37 GMT -5
Here's the deal. I WANT to feel terrible for the company, N-Controller. I WANT to perceive them as a victim in all of this. Hell, their origins of creating a controller for the disabled gamer, that's a feel-good story of the year. You WANT people like that to succeed in this society. Hell, Koda, to a degree, I agree with you, as complex as that thing looks, I'm pretty sure that, yeah, it's a bitch to develop, and as such, it's a constant uphill battle to keep a person's dream of helping disabled gamers afloat. However, I want this company to fail. "However his behavior was unprovoked, unnecessary, and unforgivable. We are no longer represented by Ocean Marketing"- therein lies my FIRST major problem. What "behavior?" The same behavior, as DeathToAnalog posted, that was traced easily as far back as July of this year? How about the situation in September? December? Had Paul Christoforo attempted to strong-arm Penny Arcade, I'm convinced, as the old axiom goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." There's a good enough history of a company acting like this, they will continue until they get their hand caught in the cookie jar. I myself have been in a similar situation, which is what pisses me off so much. I was treated like an inconvenience by a company, and when I, as politely as I could after three months of "being an inconvenience", I told the company to f*** off, in so many words, that I would never shop at any of their stores again. Back to my point. It wasn't as if this was some isolated offense. There was a documented history of this company taking money from consumers, and not shipping their product in a timely fashion. That is highly illegal and beyond unethical. The "apology" from N-Control looks just as "caught in the cookie jar" apologetic as Paul himself was. They're getting caught up in all of this, and haven't shown to be remorseful, just sorry that they're taking a hit for this. They don't seem sincere in the fact that customers were affected in all of this. I want this company to fail. Ignoring a potential domestic abuse charge brought up in all this media shit-storm, David Kotkin and Paul Christoforo run a business together out of Miami, called "Afternoon Artists Inc." So they have a much stronger history than the whole "we need to get our small company off the ground" thing. According to another article online ( www.gameranx.com/updates/id/4224/article/ocean-marketing-s-paul-christoforo-has-a-history-of-domestic-violence/), HAND media, a group that originally did the marketing for the controller, fired both N-Controller and Paul's Ocean Marketing firm because of Paul. What I got from that article is that Hand Media originally was to market the controller for mass production. They couldn't get it off the ground, so they brought in Paul Christoforo, who, as Koda mentioned, would name drop everyone and their brother. I can understand a small company seeing potential in this. You NEED people that have that sort of drive and determination to succeed in a global marketplace. Hand Media's Brandon Leidel claims that because of Paul's lack of interaction with his company, and how he handled his business, they walked away from the deal. Enter the new PR for N-Controller, Eli Schwartz. Beyond being a hilariously fake sounding name, he has gone on damage control mode. However, until this stuff becomes public, it does't seem like this individual has done much other than complain that Amazon is full of "hate trolling". One way or the other, you were given the position. Be ready to have to swim through crap to get yourself afloat. I want this company to fail. Finally, yeah, this was a runaway train from the word go. Christoforo deserves whatever hypothetical non-violent lynching he receives. You, as a PR representative, CANNOT treat customers as inconveniences. If the company you work for cannot make deadlines, you bail. If your company has a "rogue PR agent", you cut them loose. This was a mutually symbiotic company of poor ownership, poor marketing, poor customer service on both ends. Sad that a company that MAY have started on such honorable terms end like this. But at the end of the day, I want this company to fail.
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Post by 'Foretold' Joker on Dec 28, 2011 6:58:11 GMT -5
Didn't see this thread ...
Crazy story and the guy in question seems to be an idiot of the highest order, who the hell hired him if this is his attitude to customers? Amused me no end this morning the only day I am working over the christmas period.
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theryno665
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Post by theryno665 on Dec 28, 2011 8:38:25 GMT -5
This guy looks like a younger version of my boss, oddly enough.
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Post by rapidfire187 on Dec 28, 2011 12:34:19 GMT -5
I think people are actually understating how stupid of a move that was from the PR rep. He was asked a very very simple question about a preorder that has missed the deadline. How f***ing hard would it have been to give a straight up answer that promoted goodwill? Did that guy never take any business writing classes? How the hell did he get that job in the first place?
Neither of them should have had to send more than 1 email. It was just such an incredibly easy situation to handle, that I have a hard time believing that this guy had any experience or training in that field.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Dec 28, 2011 14:51:31 GMT -5
christ, has this tool never had a job in the real world before. a kid working at freaking McDonalds knows more about customer service than this toolbox.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 28, 2011 15:09:10 GMT -5
Man he even looks like the archetypical douchebag. I thought that was just a silly internet meme pic until I found out it really was him.
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