Ocean Marketing’s EPIC FAIL

In early November, 2011, customer Dave ordered a couple of new N-Control Avenger controllers, a product designed to allow for quicker reflexes, as well as being a great step forward for the disabled gamer market see more about the product here.

He pre-ordered the product, which was set for arrival “Early December”. When that expectation was let down, he got in touch with Ocean Marketing, the marketing company in charge of handling complaints, enquiries, etc. And so began a tale epic in scope, fail in nature.

At first, the responses were curt and mildly confusing. Then they were slightly more informative, while still managing to be utterly unhelpful. Then they took a nosedive into being outright rude and obnoxious.

Dave, as any conscientious gamer and egregiously slighted consumer would… he dropped a line to gaming media sites like Penny Arcade and Kotaku. Gabe at PA then joined in on the conversation, in the hopes of coming to some sort of resolution.

Ocean-Marketing-guy then proceeded to name-drop and big-talk himself into a deep, dark, lonely hole. The entire conversation can be read on PA here.

Then the rest of the gaming world went wild with rage. They brought down the Avenger controller’s Amazon rating to 1 star within 8 hours. This is a real shame, as despite it’s marketing troubles, and enraged gamer community snapping at it’s heels, the product itself and the company that makes it had nothing to do with the debacle. Read their side of the story on Kotaku here.

Meanwhile, it seems the one-man PR company Ocean Marketing has gone out of business, and has even had his personal privacy invaded. I don’t know if he’s really a bully who deserves to be ground into dust, or he was just having an off day… and was drunk… or whatever… The way he acted was unbecoming a marketing-guy-person. And, now that it’s all across the web, his mistakes will likely haunt him forever, and in that way I kinda feel for the guy. I’m sure he’d take it all back if he could.

That said, I guess he just wasn’t the right guy for the job, and in all likelihood won’t be in the same line of work for the foreseeable future. Such is the wrath of the internet-savvy gamers of today.

So I’d like to put forward a suggestion… perhaps he’s had enough abuse now? And maybe we shouldn’t be taking it out on N-Control and their product, particularly when they had no control over Ocean-Marketing-guy’s actions.

Of course, these events will go down in internet history, and the web will forever meme and reenact them for years to come. Such as the following, by New Challenger (previously ByteJacker)

Thomas Giles
Thomas Giles
I'm a web developer, creative writer, and game enthusiast.