Today a major story broke when a young gamer named Dave inquired about his Avenger controller for the Playstation 3. The Avenger is an attachment for your Xbox 360 or PS3 controller that uses levers, letting players play video games using basically two fingers on each hand. The biggest problem with playing a console game is the level of control a gamer has over their actions. Every time a player has to use a face button they have to move their thumb off the thumb stick. This means a lack of movement during that split second which can be the reason a player dies. The Avenger removes this problem by letting players keep their thumbs on the sticks and access all the face buttons by a simple flick outwards with their index fingers which are on the triggers of the controller. The controller was actually designed by a school teacher to help disabled players… but you wouldn’t know that from the actions of one man today.

Paul Christoforo is Ocean Marketing now @OceanStrategy on twitter, the company that represents The Avenger controller. Young Dave inquired on the 16ht of December if the PS3 version of the controller would be arriving in time for Christmas. The back and forth that followed between Dave and Paul is staggering. I suggest you read it on Penny-Arcade.com HERE. As you can see Paul wasn’t exactly the most pleasant person to talk to. He wasn’t even well written. Wrong uses of “your” plague the back and forth emails and of course his response to Mike, co-founder and artist of Penny-Arcade.com is disgusting. It’s easy to hate Paul. He’s not a likable person in any way.

But the story doesn’t simply end there. The Avenger is still a great product developed for a brilliant reason and even Dave can recognize that. It genuinely helps disabled gamers who are missing fingers, or have very little use in their hands. We know what it takes to get a hardcore product like The Avenger off the ground and I have been personally tracking it’s success from when I first heard about it months ago. I myself want one… but I’m also turned off by Paul so much that I don’t want to ever have to deal with him or know that my money is going to his paycheck.

That’s where we’re at now. A product that changes how gamers can play the game… changes the way the console controller is even thought of and is one of the biggest helps to disabled gamers on the market, but that has a real dirt bag associated with it… but for how long?

As this story has blazed on and now more and more truth is coming to light about Paul and his practices. Kotaku wanted more information on the story and their side of it is even creepier. I suggest taking a look at what went on OVER HERE. So who exactly is Paul and how related to the company is he? Now it sounds as though he’s not a part of the company at all. We’re hearing they were fired 8 months ago? He’s responding to emails as other people? What is that about? And this whole thing with steroids?

We suggest Avenger clean house quickly, file a public statement over the whole thing and let us know what’s really going on with the company. We never want to work with Paul, but we honestly would love to work with Avenger. In the end, like the headline says… we feel sorry for them. This is going to be something people remember, and with “Ocean Marketing Guy” already being a meme, there’s no telling when it will go away.

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