

PR Firm Unwisely Tangles With Penny Arcade - bane
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/27/2128202/pr-firm-unwisely-tangles-with-penny-arcade

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secretwhistle
The only issue I have with this whole situation (and believe me, this is the
ONLY issue -- everything else I'm on board with) is Gabe's response to the
rogue PR's request that he "make it stop:"

"The reality is that once I had posted the emails I didn’t have the power
anymore. The Internet had it now and nothing I said or did was going to change
that."

Everything he says is true, BUT... he posted the email addresses. Claiming
that it's out of his hands (and implicitly NOT HIS FAULT what happens now) is
like handing a bunch of firebugs some gasoline and strike-anywhere matches and
claiming you're powerless to prevent the ensuing Devil's Night reenactment.

Those email addresses would have been dug up via the internet by enterprising
individuals sooner or later. It seems a bit smug to revel in the very
destruction you laid the groundwork for.

Other than that, I am all for exposure of hideous customer service/PR
entities. This is precisely why anyone in these fields, in this day and age,
should be doing everything they can to take care of their paying customers.
You sure as hell don't want the loosely confederated wrath of the internet
turned against you.

~~~
bane
I agree. I think it's important to bring up Ocean's poor customer response,
but also don't think PA's public posting of the details was the correct
response.

My schadenfreude is of course piqued, but I think blowing this up in quite so
public a way is quite the right way to deal with it.

------
bane
Overzealous automod blocked my original submission
[http://www.examiner.com/video-game-industry-in-
national/ocea...](http://www.examiner.com/video-game-industry-in-
national/ocean-marketing-gaming-pr-rep-to-avoid-at-all-cost)

Thought this might be an interesting case study in what not to do w/r to PR
and/or responding to bad PR firms.

I definitely think Ocean is in the wrong here, but I'm not sure the PA
response was correct also.

