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The Avenger
I was obviously shocked (the thing looks like a love child between HR Geiger and HP Lovecraft), but my interest was piqued. I looked it up on Amazon, and was put off by a few reviews, but mostly the reply to these reviews from obvious socks. But these socks were special, in that they not only did they went out of their way to glorify this product, but also berated anyone who bothered to respond to their reply, calling them liars (and at some point, stopped bothering with glorification and started immediately with the name calling). Needless to say, I decided to skip this and move on.
That was in October.
I get on Penny Arcade today, and find that a drama of mind-blowing proportions exploded when a customer decided to contact the marketing company about a delayed order. PA reader Dave, having received a less than professional response (not only in behavior, but also spelling and grammar), decided to CC Mike Krauhlik of PA, Kotaku, and numerous other gaming Web sites after the guy from Ocean Marketing name dropped while trying to beat Dave over the head with how awesome his product is.
And here is the fall out. the Amazon page for both versions of the device have been one-star bombed, and while it's easy to weed out the hate trolling and the legitimate complaints, the fun starts when you read the replies to the legitimate ones. Now, those very same socks from two months ago are leaving contact info to get in touch with Ocean Marketing directly, saying, "Contact us about this and we will replace it."
According to Krahulik, there's a chance that Christoforo might also be part owner of N-Conrtol, the makers of the Avenger.
What I have to add is, for anyone saying we need to separate the actions of a poor PR guy from the company that hired him, remember: they hired him. And they knew he was a douche from the start.
EDIT:
And the shit just keeps on rolling: The Examiner
Quote
First, upon googling the phone number Eli Schwartz provided me last night via his gmail account (Note: Despite working with David Kotkin on The Avenger controller, he does not have an avengercontroller.com email address such as david@avengercontroller.com for Kotkin or Info@avengercontroller.com as utilized by Christoforo) to contact David, I discovered that on Amazon David Kotkin was on a bit of uneven footing not that long ago on 11.24.11, prior to yesterday's events with Paul Christoforo and Ocean Marketing. Scrolling down beyond the 1-star review reveals comments from David Kotkin's Gaming Pro Amazon user profile to other users. Notably, according to user C. K. Ahlstrom, "There's a review on your account saying that you bought one of these things (and loved it). Now your posting with an email account from avengercontroller.com and offering support for it? You also posted the same negative review for three of your competitors products. I wonder if amazon will want to know you post reviews for your own product while posing as a customer." Looking deeper into the Gaming Pro user, thanks to cached reviews shows that David Kotkin's Gaming Pro user profile does indeed try to derail his competition while lauding his own Avenger product, but this appears to be the tip of the iceberg.
Stealth edit: Thanks to Dan for discovering the reviews and sending them my way.
Delving into the credibility of Eli Schwartz came back a bit suspiciously as his Twitter account has only been in service since May 16th of this year and seems to only have been created solely as a shell account to push The Avenger product. Additionally, at further glance of Eli's Facebook and Google+ accounts neither of which show a picture of Eli and smacking of poor grammatical and syntax uses that would be common to a high school age kid (which his Facebook lists him as attending East Longmeadow High School in Massachusetts), it's also been made apparent in the last day or so that Paul Christoforo also lacks a solid command of written language as well evidenced by his online postings. As far as location data, that can be added in a status update bar and can be easily faked if need be via the Facebook web interface. Furthermore, Schwartz lists his profession as DJ, which raises questions why exactly David Kotkin would allow a high school age DJ to work damage control PR for his product in the wake of Ocean Marketing, especially when having Eli send out PR releases from a gmail account as opposed to a avengercontroller.com account would only weaken his position. Finally, adding insult to injury, even Eli Schwartz's 5 star Amazon review for The Avenger on Nov 29, 2011 smacks of other reviews illustrating Ocean Marketing's signature touch.
While I'm sure David Kotkin may have great intentions when creating The Avenger initially, there is just too many fishy things that are slowly adding up since the Ocean Marketing fiasco came to light yesterday. In the meantime, I'll be patiently waiting for a press release to come directly from David Kotkin, who should really step up to the plate following what may be slowly transitioning from a marketing disaster solely for Ocean Marketing and into one overall for The Avenger as well. Wishing to abstain from accusations, I'll leave the evidence for readers to judge. Simply said though, there's nothing difficult about transparency, especially when it can only help smooth over what appears to be a decidedly odd situation.
Stealth edit: Thanks to Dan for discovering the reviews and sending them my way.
Delving into the credibility of Eli Schwartz came back a bit suspiciously as his Twitter account has only been in service since May 16th of this year and seems to only have been created solely as a shell account to push The Avenger product. Additionally, at further glance of Eli's Facebook and Google+ accounts neither of which show a picture of Eli and smacking of poor grammatical and syntax uses that would be common to a high school age kid (which his Facebook lists him as attending East Longmeadow High School in Massachusetts), it's also been made apparent in the last day or so that Paul Christoforo also lacks a solid command of written language as well evidenced by his online postings. As far as location data, that can be added in a status update bar and can be easily faked if need be via the Facebook web interface. Furthermore, Schwartz lists his profession as DJ, which raises questions why exactly David Kotkin would allow a high school age DJ to work damage control PR for his product in the wake of Ocean Marketing, especially when having Eli send out PR releases from a gmail account as opposed to a avengercontroller.com account would only weaken his position. Finally, adding insult to injury, even Eli Schwartz's 5 star Amazon review for The Avenger on Nov 29, 2011 smacks of other reviews illustrating Ocean Marketing's signature touch.
While I'm sure David Kotkin may have great intentions when creating The Avenger initially, there is just too many fishy things that are slowly adding up since the Ocean Marketing fiasco came to light yesterday. In the meantime, I'll be patiently waiting for a press release to come directly from David Kotkin, who should really step up to the plate following what may be slowly transitioning from a marketing disaster solely for Ocean Marketing and into one overall for The Avenger as well. Wishing to abstain from accusations, I'll leave the evidence for readers to judge. Simply said though, there's nothing difficult about transparency, especially when it can only help smooth over what appears to be a decidedly odd situation.
This post has been edited by Vigilous: 29 December 2011 - 06:32 AM
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