N-Control makes up for Ocean Marketing row

N-Control late Thursday brought a close to one of the rockier episodes in PR by dropping controversial outside help from Ocean Marketing's Paul Christoforo. The creator of the add-on, which extends PS3 gamepads to help the disabled, said that it was taking back control of its e-mail and social networking accounts and had set up temporary e-mail and Twitter accounts (above). Avenger creator David Kotkin said he "deeply regret[s]" the damage Christoforo did to the brand as well as the original problem that sparked the dispute, the company missing its original November 8 ship date and in many cases Christmas.

"We have dropped the ball by giving them delivery estimates that did not come through as expected," Kotkin said. "We didn't expect that the demand would be so great, and we should have done a better job communicating that. Our new team is taking all necessary action to correct that going forward. I hope that people will give us a chance to earn back the faith they may have lost."

As an olive branch, all pre-orderers, and not just those that had asked, would get a $10 discount on the Avenger if ordered before its new January 15 ship date. A new consultant, Moisés Chiullan, was taking over marketing, media, and sales.

Christoforo drew attention after a dialog was posted on Penny-Arcade with a customer who made a request for credit for a delayed order. The now-infamous conversation saw the agent quickly escalate the responses to a clearly unprofessional level, using bullying, threats, and referencing connections that either had dubious relevance to the conversation or were tenuous at best, such as to the mayor of Boston.

After his conversation became public, he quickly became defensive and tried changing Twitter account names to hide from criticism, changing the Twitter account from a misspelled "OceanMarketting" to "OceanStretagy" while continuing to hurl insults and downplay the impact of what he had done.

By Electronista Staff