Ocean Marketing Shoots Itself In the Foot With A Rocket Launcher

[Update] The Ocean Saga has finally come to a close. The Ocean Saga sounds like a Wii exclusive Japanese RPG that a small group of fans are complaining to Nintendo about, demanding its stateside release, but it's actually the tale of a controller manufacturer and its poor hiring decision of a crazy person and his marketing firm.

Kotaku is reporting that Paul Christoforo is no longer in the marketing business, which is odd considering he knows the mayor of Boston.

All that's left now is for avengercontroller.com to try and clean up the mess that Christoforo created and get its company on track.

[Update] Apparently Paul has apologized. Do you forgive him?

[Update] Kotaku reached out to who they believed was the director of marketing for avengercontroller.com, Brandon Liedel. The response they received was from Paul, but the e-mail was signed as being from Liedel. Liedel later sent an e-mail to Kotaku making sure they understood the original e-mail was not actually form him. In the e-mail the real Liedel had this to say about Paul: "[He 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."

We'll have more updates on Oceangate 2011 as they arise.

[Original story] Penny-Arcade's Mike Krahulik recently posted an e-mail exchange between an Ocean Marketing representative and a consumer named Dave who was simply inquiring about the delivery date of a controller he ordered from avengercontroller.com. The whole conversation has to be seen to be believed.

The gist of the whole thing, is that this guy from Ocean Marketing, Paul Christoforo, is a total jerk for no apparent reason. Dave makes a simple request about the product he paid for, and Paul loses his mind.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Paul:

This is in response to Dave inquiring about when he can expect to receive his shipment.

"Things happen in manufacturing if your unhappy you have 7 days from the day your item ships for a refund. You placed a pre order just like any software title the gets a date moved due to the tweaks and bugs not being worked out and GameStop or any other place holds your cash and im sure you don’t complain to activision or epic games so put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else."

This is a small part of Paul's response after Dave offered an understandably upset response to Paul's "big boy hat" comment.

"Grow up you look like a complete child bro."

This is Paul's response after Mike of Penny-Arcade got involved saying that Ocean Marketing would not be allowed a booth at upcoming PAX conventions. Paul didn't believe that Mike was who he claimed to be. He is also very proud of being from Boston. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I am not sure why it's pertinent.

"OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone."

Since the exchange went online and Paul from Ocean offered misplaced thanks to Dave and Mike for the free promotion, Ocean Marketing changed its twitter name from @oceanmarketting to @oceanstratagy. Probably a smart move, but I don't think they will be able to come back from this. Not when the internet and gamers are involved. We don't take kindly to unwarranted rudeness.

I would highly recommend reading the whole thing by clicking here.

Here's one more choice quote from Paul before you click the link:

"We do value our customers but sometimes we get children like you we just have to put you in the corner with your im stupid hat on."