'Penny Arcade' Posts Hilariously Unprofessional E-Mails From Marketing Company

I really don't see this as a lot different from a traditional media outlet reporting the antisocial behavior of a corporate officer.

Do we accuse CNN of "bullying" because they reported the excesses of Bernie Ebbers or Ken Lay and folks saw fit to call them douchebags?

Seriously. All the folks at Penny Arcade did was report the truth regarding a complete sociopath who acted in a very public manner. And this function of reporting is a fundamentally important part of living in a free society.

I feel like we need to clarify the definition of bullying. Punishment and bullying are not the same thing. Christoforo was punished, not bullied. The punishment may have been extreme and that's a valid conversation to have but to say that he was bullied is just not accurate.

Also I agree with Paleocon 100%. It's important that stories like this get out. Holding them back and resolving everything behind closed doors does no one any favors except the guy who deserves to be punished.

PA posting the exchange and the info on their front page would be like CNN doing the same thing, if CNN had a mob of internet forum-goers who get their kicks out of abusing the target.

And yes, if CNN knowingly posts news that they know will influence their fans to abusive and borderline criminal behavior, then that's actually gone beyond bullying, because unlike PA, CNN is an actual news organization.

It should not matter who it is or what he did. Bullying is bullying. Who the target is does not matter. If you like it, you like it. At the point where you have to come up with justifications or have to examine whether someone "deserved" it, you've become part of the bullying culture.

LarryC wrote:

And yes, if CNN knowingly posts news that they know will influence their fans to abusive and borderline criminal behavior, then that's actually gone beyond bullying, because unlike PA, CNN is an actual news organization.

So, for example, if CNN was to get footage of a bunch of cops beating a black man to death, they shouldn't air that footage, because it may incite viewers to criminal behavior?

LarryC wrote:

PA posting the exchange and the info on their front page would be like CNN doing the same thing, if CNN had a mob of internet forum-goers who get their kicks out of abusing the target.

And yes, if CNN knowingly posts news that they know will influence their fans to abusive and borderline criminal behavior, then that's actually gone beyond bullying, because unlike PA, CNN is an actual news organization.

It should not matter who it is or what he did. Bullying is bullying. Who the target is does not matter. If you like it, you like it. At the point where you have to come up with justifications or have to examine whether someone "deserved" it, you've become part of the bullying culture.

I take it you've never been on the PA forums. The people who post there are far better than the horrible sub-human creatures that wander the CNN comments sections. Also, by your definition, bullying would be context-sensitive to the audience that it is being done in front of. So picking on a nerd in front of jocks[using Revenge of the Nerds reality/definitions] is fine, just don't do it in front of anyone who might stand up for the nerd.

Yonder wrote:
LarryC wrote:

And yes, if CNN knowingly posts news that they know will influence their fans to abusive and borderline criminal behavior, then that's actually gone beyond bullying, because unlike PA, CNN is an actual news organization.

So, for example, if CNN was to get footage of a bunch of cops beating a black man to death, they shouldn't air that footage, because it may incite viewers to criminal behavior?

That is a clearly different situation. What they are revealing is important news (as opposed to bad customer service!) and they have no clear knowledge of after effects, nor are they directly related to those criminal elements.

Kraint wrote:
LarryC wrote:

PA posting the exchange and the info on their front page would be like CNN doing the same thing, if CNN had a mob of internet forum-goers who get their kicks out of abusing the target.

And yes, if CNN knowingly posts news that they know will influence their fans to abusive and borderline criminal behavior, then that's actually gone beyond bullying, because unlike PA, CNN is an actual news organization.

It should not matter who it is or what he did. Bullying is bullying. Who the target is does not matter. If you like it, you like it. At the point where you have to come up with justifications or have to examine whether someone "deserved" it, you've become part of the bullying culture.

I take it you've never been on the PA forums. The people who post there are far better than the horrible sub-human creatures that wander the CNN comments sections. Also, by your definition, bullying would be context-sensitive to the audience that it is being done in front of. So picking on a nerd in front of jocks[using Revenge of the Nerds reality/definitions] is fine, just don't do it in front of anyone who might stand up for the nerd.

I'm taking the position that picking on anyone at all is not fine. I felt that I had made that abundantly clear.

LarryC wrote:

I'm taking the position that picking on anyone at all is not fine. I felt that I had made that abundantly clear.

So you believe that no one ever deserves it? Do you think there should be no repercussions at all for people's behavior or should they just go through proper channels (i.e. law enforcement, BBB, etc)? Or should they all be passive (i.e. defriending, not purchasing products, etc)?

If those are too general questions you could answer them just in relation to Christoforo if that's easier.

LarryC wrote:

I'm taking the position that picking on anyone at all is not fine. I felt that I had made that abundantly clear.

I don't consider what Mike did to be considered "picking on" Christoforo. It may not have been the best way to handle things, but it wasn't picking on him or bullying him either. He posted the email chain that was sent to him (and that he was part of), and the company contact information for the person on the other end of it.

Stengah wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I'm taking the position that picking on anyone at all is not fine. I felt that I had made that abundantly clear.

I don't consider what Mike did to be considered "picking on" Christoforo. It may not have been the best way to handle things, but it wasn't picking on him or bullying him either. He posted the email chain that was sent to him (and that he was part of), and the company contact information for the person on the other end of it.

As I said before picking on/bullying implies a sense of arbitrary nature, often simply based on the fact that someone is weaker/smaller (literally or figuratively). This is not that situation. These actions are repercussions of poor behavior. Again, it's perfectly valid for LarryC and anyone else to have an issue with those repercussions but it's simply not bullying or picking on him.

When you pick fights in bars and get your ass handed to you on a spade, you didn't get "bullied ". You just paid your taxes.

Paleocon wrote:

When you pick fights in bars and get your ass handed to you on a spade, you didn't get "bullied ". You just paid your taxes.

Are you intentionally parodying his comment about picking a barfight with an MMA Champion? Or was that just a happy coincidence?

Nosferatu wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

When you pick fights in bars and get your ass handed to you on a spade, you didn't get "bullied ". You just paid your taxes.

Are you intentionally parodying his comment about picking a barfight with an MMA Champion? Or was that just a happy coincidence?

In all honesty, it's a fair comparison.

My problem with the idea of de-escalating this scenario and calming things down, is that it's exactly what the bully (Cristoforo) wants. He wants you to back away and come at this from the polite, diplomatic angle. That's the angle that he has completely demolished people from for his entire life by not being polite and diplomatic like normal humans expect each other to be, so if you want to join the long line of people in that situation go for it. There are some people where avoiding confrontation isn't a long term solution, you don't get what you want out of the scenario, and the bully reinforces his learning that that's an effective way to deal with people by getting another feather in his cap.

In this situation you can only affect lasting improvement by standing up for yourself, with friends if you have to. People have linked to a half dozen previous similar situations with Cristofero, if Mike, or someone else like him, had done this to Cristofero 20 years ago none of this may have happened. Here's to hoping that the next 20 years is indeed more pleasant for people that happen across this schmuck.

gregrampage wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I'm taking the position that picking on anyone at all is not fine. I felt that I had made that abundantly clear.

So you believe that no one ever deserves it? Do you think there should be no repercussions at all for people's behavior or should they just go through proper channels (i.e. law enforcement, BBB, etc)? Or should they all be passive (i.e. defriending, not purchasing products, etc)?

If those are too general questions you could answer them just in relation to Christoforo if that's easier.

I think you're making acssumptions that I am not, so you are understandably misconstruing what I said. I'd say that this was a cultural divide, but I think Elysium understands just fine.

I can only control myself and what I do - that is what we can all control with the most surety. My objection is not based on whether or not Christoforo deserves it or not. That question is entirely moot.

The question is, what does it make me (us) that I would resort to bullying to get my way? The answer to that is that that makes me a bully. Mike himself is beginning to come to this understanding, but he hasn't carried it quite to its logical conclusion, I think, or if he has, then I can't say that he is all that admirable.

None of this has any bearing on social or political policy. Those questions should be determined outside of any current moral systems or beliefs, save as a factor in how the people can be governed.

We do not stop bullying by being bullies. That only changes who the bully is, and perpetuates the status quo of the bullying culture. This is not to say that we cannot stop bullies or that we should ot stand up to them. That comes from the assumption that the only way to stand up to bullies is by being a bully yourself.

I disagree with Paleocon that this was akin to a bar fight where the guy came up against a larger, more powerful person. Up until Dave mailed his inflammatory email, Christoforo was a bad rep, but he didn't cause the controllers to be late - he's just marketing. He doesn't control the supply chain.

What's going on is bullying, pure and simple. I have dealt with all these reasonings and justifications before. They were used by bullies. If you need to justify the action using these concepts, you need to not do the action.

LarryC, can you actually define bullying for me so I can fully grasp what you are saying. I have repeatedly defined how I interpret the words and actions and you are just repeating "this is bullying" and I just don't understand how that is true. I've supplied my own interpretation and a dictionary definition and neither of them apply in this situation.

To treat abusively; to coerce by force thereby

There is zero acceptable justification for abusing other people on a personal, and especially on a moral level. Up until Christoforo answered fire with fire, he was not, to my reading, treating Dave abusively. He was a bad rep, and he was providing bad service; but that's more of a product rather than a personal interaction. He even offered Dave the option to cancel the order in favor of a new order with Dave's observed benefits for new customers. It got personal when Dave got abusive, then they both did.

It's a good example of a bad exchange, precisely because both sides behaved abhorrently. We can learn nothing from this exchange, except how not to behave ourselves, going by both parties. Siding with either jerk is not an option I would like. I am censuring Mike actions, but I am not thereby approving of Christoforo's actions. They were both in the wrong, and I would like a world in which we can show children and people abused by bullies a better alternative. It doesn't have to go on.

Christoforo lived by the sword and so he has died by it, or at least cut himself a bit. No, Mike's behavior was not ethical, but he's always been kind of a troll. Dude is not a great role model for interpersonal relations. He is, however, a better role model than Christoforo, whose lifestyle would seem to involve advancing his own status purely through abusing social power systems and racing other people to the bottom of the decent human behavior barrel. If he were a WWE wrestler, he'd be the guy distracting the ref and then kicking you in the balls. People love it when a heel gets his comeuppance.

Yeah. If I witness an assistant coach raping a kid in a shower, I'm going to get coercive and abusive on a deeply personal level. I guess that makes me a bully.

LarryC, I think that's way too broad of a definition. When I showed up for a warrant attempt at a guy's house, and he tried to slam the door on us, we had to use force to coerce him into handcuffs. He got some nasty bruises as a result, but nothing more.

Did we bully him? By your definition, absolutely, and that's never okay in your world. In my world, we had every legal and moral right to arrest this guy.

How about a less violent example that is more closely related to this case? I can't remember if I posted it here or in the other thread, but let's look at specialty vehicle tuner shops. Let's say a tuning shop here in Colorado is doing just fine when they suddenly screw some customer. I mean, let's say they botch an engine swap and tune, and it blows up, costing the customer $6500. For whatever reason, it's all documented somewhere. The customer makes a reasonable attempt to get help from the business and they tell him to get bent. In the end, the customer holds the bag for the full repair bill.

When the customer goes online and presents his evidence of this transaction, the local car clubs will be enraged. If the shop refuses to make it right, I can almost guarantee that the custom shop will be out of business within a year. Via an online campaign of free bad press, he'll find himself looking for work elsewhere real fast. Is that bullying as well?

The only difference here that I can tell is that Paul should have been the sole recipient of this response, while N Control is receiving a huge share of negative reviews and press. I don't buy a damn word of his whole, "My family was threatened!" crap. He did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to in his position, and he endured roughly 24-48 hours of upsetting e-mails (delete key) and phone calls (turn it off), in addition to getting fired. He only acted that way because he thought he wouldn't be found out.

I don't think any of us are going to change anybody's mind in this argument, but I really feel that sometimes force - whether physical, verbal, etc - is the only solution to a problem. Anybody who thinks every single problem can be talked out lives in a different world from me.

InspectorFowler wrote:

LarryC, I think that's way too broad of a definition. When I showed up for a warrant attempt at a guy's house, and he tried to slam the door on us, we had to use force to coerce him into handcuffs. He got some nasty bruises as a result, but nothing more.

Did we bully him? By your definition, absolutely, and that's never okay in your world. In my world, we had every legal and moral right to arrest this guy.

How about a less violent example that is more closely related to this case? I can't remember if I posted it here or in the other thread, but let's look at specialty vehicle tuner shops. Let's say a tuning shop here in Colorado is doing just fine when they suddenly screw some customer. I mean, let's say they botch an engine swap and tune, and it blows up, costing the customer $6500. For whatever reason, it's all documented somewhere. The customer makes a reasonable attempt to get help from the business and they tell him to get bent. In the end, the customer holds the bag for the full repair bill.

When the customer goes online and presents his evidence of this transaction, the local car clubs will be enraged. If the shop refuses to make it right, I can almost guarantee that the custom shop will be out of business within a year. Via an online campaign of free bad press, he'll find himself looking for work elsewhere real fast. Is that bullying as well?

The only difference here that I can tell is that Paul should have been the sole recipient of this response, while N Control is receiving a huge share of negative reviews and press. I don't buy a damn word of his whole, "My family was threatened!" crap. He did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to in his position, and he endured roughly 24-48 hours of upsetting e-mails (delete key) and phone calls (turn it off), in addition to getting fired. He only acted that way because he thought he wouldn't be found out.

I don't think any of us are going to change anybody's mind in this argument, but I really feel that sometimes force - whether physical, verbal, etc - is the only solution to a problem. Anybody who thinks every single problem can be talked out lives in a different world from me.

Just like that mean Indian bully that tried to put all those nice English salt merchants out of business.

LarryC wrote:

To treat abusively; to coerce by force thereby

There is zero acceptable justification for abusing other people on a personal, and especially on a moral level. Up until Christoforo answered fire with fire, he was not, to my reading, treating Dave abusively. He was a bad rep, and he was providing bad service; but that's more of a product rather than a personal interaction. He even offered Dave the option to cancel the order in favor of a new order with Dave's observed benefits for new customers. It got personal when Dave got abusive, then they both did.

It's a good example of a bad exchange, precisely because both sides behaved abhorrently. We can learn nothing from this exchange, except how not to behave ourselves, going by both parties. Siding with either jerk is not an option I would like. I am censuring Mike actions, but I am not thereby approving of Christoforo's actions. They were both in the wrong, and I would like a world in which we can show children and people abused by bullies a better alternative. It doesn't have to go on.

No, go read it again, for the bold. He actually was a jerk about that part. He told Dave that "they would be watching" for people that canceled and re-ordered to get the discount. And then went on some threat about how he would take Dave's controllers and resell them on ebay himself.

This guy was a complete asshole. Stop defending him.

InspectorFowler wrote:

The only difference here that I can tell is that Paul should have been the sole recipient of this response, while N Control is receiving a huge share of negative reviews and press.

I agree with pretty much your whole post except this part. I don't agree with the concept of review bombing but N-Control definitely deserves a lot of the bad press they are getting. Christofo has a history of this kind of behaviour and N-Control still hired him and beyond that, gave him control over their e-mail and web hosting systems. They've been going overboard on their damage control and have had to keep doing so because their bad decisions led to another public battle over getting their web site and e-mail back. N-Control is clearly a very poorly managed company and while I can't speak for the quality of the particular product they sell, I wouldn't voluntarily hand my money over to them in light of how they've also handled this.

I honestly think that N-control can come away from this relatively unscathed as long as they do the proper damage control. Depending on how they handle the next couple weeks, they could either flameout and burn or lay this entirely at the feet of Oshun Makretting (or however that bonehead spelled it).

The first step would be a personal and public mea culpa from the CEO, some kind of satisfactory restitution to the aggrieved pre-order customers, and a public and definitive denunciation of their former PR firm. I mean truly and completely toss them under the bus and instruct the driver to come around for a second pass.

That might satisfy me.

Paleocon wrote:

I honestly think that N-control can come away from this relatively unscathed as long as they do the proper damage control. Depending on how they handle the next couple weeks, they could either flameout and burn or lay this entirely at the feet of Oshun Makretting (or however that bonehead spelled it).

The first step would be a personal and public mea culpa from the CEO, some kind of satisfactory restitution to the aggrieved pre-order customers, and a public and definitive denunciation of their former PR firm. I mean truly and completely toss them under the bus and instruct the driver to come around for a second pass.

That might satisfy me.

That's not really asking too much either. Business 101 for the most part.

Nosferatu wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

When you pick fights in bars and get your ass handed to you on a spade, you didn't get "bullied ". You just paid your taxes.

Are you intentionally parodying his comment about picking a barfight with an MMA Champion? Or was that just a happy coincidence?

lol. His tweets really did need mocking, but no. It just seemed to press the point.

We had one kid in high school (an entitled trustifarian with well connected parents) who thought he was something. He was a pretty talented wrestler who thought that because he was he could use this as a way to intimidate and bully folks. Most folks, unless they were targets of his aggression, played the part of cheering bystander.

One day, he decided to pick on one of the poor farm kids. The kid was about 15 pounds lighter than the wrestler and always a bit quiet. Never really played any sports or participated much in school activities. The wrestler apparently thought it was a pretty safe bet that no one would stick up for the kid and he was right. What he didn't count on was that the reason the kid didn't spend a lot of time around the school was that he spent a lot of time punching cows and baling hay.

Wrestler ended up with a concussion and a busted jaw. Farm boy ended up with a three day suspension despite being the one who threw the second punch. After that, though, wrestler boy had a different attitude altogether.

That's the way it is with bullies. They're a bit like alcoholics. They don't intend to end up locked up overnight in a pool of their own vomit and tend to get very indignant when they do. They see their antics as harmless so long as they aren't harming themselves and, until they do, they feel entitled to it. What happens to them isn't "bullying" or even "counter-bullying". It's just karma.

Paleocon wrote:

I honestly think that N-control can come away from this relatively unscathed as long as they do the proper damage control. Depending on how they handle the next couple weeks, they could either flameout and burn or lay this entirely at the feet of Oshun Makretting (or however that bonehead spelled it).

The first step would be a personal and public mea culpa from the CEO, some kind of satisfactory restitution to the aggrieved pre-order customers, and a public and definitive denunciation of their former PR firm. I mean truly and completely toss them under the bus and instruct the driver to come around for a second pass.

That might satisfy me.

You mean like this?

bennard wrote:

Here's a link that contains the press release from N-Control, that clears up most of the speculation that has been running amok.


http://gamerfront.net/2011/12/n-control-responds-to-ocean-marketing-fiasco/15260

From last Wed, and about 3 pages ago.

This essentially clears up most of the questions surrounding the entire ordeal. What’s more the company has decided to give a $10 discount to everyone who has pre-ordered a PS3 Avenger. And those pre-orders should be fulfilled by no later than January 15th, with some arriving before that time.

pretty much

Not to mention that the new guy they hired to handle PR seems really good.

For the longest time, I felt very conflicted about the response to this. I felt that it was in equal parts just *and* bullying at the same time. After letting this soak in my brain, I come down to this analysis of the situation.

The PR guy acted like a douchewaffle. There is *no* doubt about that. The resulting response from the internet was *both* just and bullying.

The just part was the internet campaign writing in and contacting N-Control to complain about him. That is what we would expect to happen in meatspace were something like this to happen and be reported on any given news channel.

The bullying part is when the internet started trawling through the archives of the internet looking for stuff that they could post and go "Look, more proof he is bad!" While there has been no proof provided that his wife and kids were threatened, I do not doubt, for an instant, given the nature of internet mobs (heck, mobs anywhere) to go well past the reasonable line. There have been stories presented on the internet, some on this very site, where people have been threatened for less.

Paleocon wrote:

Oshun Makretting (or however that bonehead spelled it).

I think it was :

O'Sean Merekating
Oceana Bin Marketing
Angry Bad Person who does Marking

I got nothing.