PA comic: Monday December 26, 2011 - Good Data
Robert Khoo
Registered User, ClubPA staff
Registered User, ClubPA staff
When we were codifying today’s strip, Gabriel was worried that people (you, presumably) wouldn’t understand that the story was in fact true. I said that we could begin the comic with “True Story,” which is the customary procedure for tales of an ambiguous authenticity. But he countered, and rightly, with the assertion that the strip is itself a realm of thoroughly questionable provenance, and insertion into that space subjects any claim to the devolving effects of its “Whopper Field.”
So, let me be clear, in my zone of marginally increased veracity: TRUE.
For Christmas this year, I gave the gift of Crokinole. It’s a board game in the “action” or “dexterity” vein, which means that unlike most games that have risen to prominence in the global Eurogame revolution, at no point does one amass wheat.
It’s “like” a lot of games: it’s a round version of shuffleboard, for example, provided that there is also a basket, like basketball. Maybe it’s more like Darts On A Flat Plane, with concentric values of five, ten, fifteen, and twenty for the center hole. People shoot for the center until an opponent’s piece is on the board, at which point every shot needs to contact an enemy piece or get thrown into the literal garbage. Not really, but you might feel that way. Because pieces must come in contact with one another, and because their position on the field determines their value, the board becomes a fractious nation state in which escalating recriminations are the norm. You can play it 1v1, but in the 2v2 Team Mode I so crave, each player only has six shots total, which invests each “input” with tremendous import. The rules don’t really contain the game. The game is about trying to manage the dynamic outcomes generated by simple rules.
There is a lot to like about Crokinole, which is (at its core) a game about trick shots with brutal penalties for failure. But it’s also a game that isn’t impossible to build completely from scratch if you know somebody who is into wood. Plus, because the game is like a hundred and thirty-six years old, everyone owns it. I’m not a free culture champion, or anything of the kind; still, the idea that this joy engine belongs to every person warms a body deep down.
(CW)TB out.
Some guy.
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and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
I get the feeling this guy enjoys smelling his own BO...
This guy clearly has a problem; it isn't so much with his ego (though he clearly has ego issues) as it is with self control. One of the keys to customer interaction is to be as positive as possible, even when things are bad; you apologize that the product is coming late and you give them the best information you can. If that information is "We might miss Christmas, but we're doing our best to get at least some controllers out before then," that's okay - its bad that you missed your ship date, but at least your customer knows and can make an informed decision based on that information. Likewise, when your customers complain that people who are putting in orders now are getting a discount, you have two choices - if you do allow people to cancel their orders and get their money back, then you SHOULD discount it, as otherwise people are going to cancel their orders then reorder it and cost you extra money, as well as goodwill - and some of them might not reorder. Yes, you might make more money by not doing so, but then you lose goodwill and, let's face it, when you're a company who does well by word of mouth and instead people start talking about how horrible you are when you interact with your customers, you can very much lose customers.
And if you send out an email to everyone being all "Hey, we dropped the price by $10 because you're so loyal and have stuck with us for so long", or even phrase the discount as an apology for being late, then instead of people being annoyed that your stuff came out late they're like "Hey, we got a discount and they are showing their contrition and are being honest with us!" Yes, some people will still be annoyed, but that does a lot to make people happier with you, which ultimately means its more likely they'll tell other people good things about you.
"its all about who you know not what you do"
Is this supreme irony, or is it Mike editing the emails to make them extra funny?
And I love the way he keeps dropping names, like it means anything or Mike doesn't know a couple of names either. Hell, Mike's is the sort of name he should be dropping.
Incredibly funny, and I can't wait to see where it goes.
Organizer of the Post-PAX Party. You should come!
Satellite Theater for life!
Hilarious stuff. I sent him an email detailing where he went wrong, and what his future goals should be. I recommended he switch careers to debt collections, where an asshole will be truly appreciated.
Then this would have been a nonissue. Thirty seconds of PR. Damn, someone pay me to do this.
It's kind of interesting, watching the flap of the butterfly's wings.
Edit:
Paul Christoforo's response to IGN's Scott Lowe's tweet
@ScottLowe your a douchebag anyway Scott we sent you how many units for review , How many conversations You were the unprofessional one
Bonus points for at first writing "Love penny Arcade!!" and later going "your sites amateur at best my son could put together a better site than yours".
And he totally had sex with lots of girls when he was at his cousin's place in Canada for a couple of weeks I bet...
http://www.natesnetwork.com/Poor-customer-service
He talked about advantages of these controllers for gamers with disabilities. If using a controller like that to improve his gaming abilities he probably won't have much choice in the matter.
True, but take comfort that hundreds (dozens?) of others won't because of his tale?
If this is troll publicity it has gone too far. When I started reading I looked up the Avenger and thought it looked pretty good. By the time I finished reading any desire to buy it had long since evaporated.
That makes for gobsmacking reading.
Hey, man, it's true
You guys weren't there!
When Paul meets a woman he likes he probably busts into her kitchen, yells "I'M DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU SHOULD DATE ME BECAUSE I'M AWESOME AND YOU ARE AN UGLY LADY AND SHOULD BE GLAD THAT I'M SHOWING YOU ANY ATTENTION," and then pisses all over her counters and poops in her crisper drawer.