The NGF Bible
Many people wonder why the vast majority of NeoGeo fans dislike the two
people running a small web based business selling neogeo carts.
They warn
people away, but often don't go into detail.
The reason they don't, is it
gets very very old, repeating the same warnings over & over
again.
For you to really understand how bad it was, & to some degree
still is, you would have had to have been apart of it for the last several
years.
Since so many fans, feeling insulted & ripped off have left the
scene.
They are no longer here to tell their tales to you.
So instead of
letting you find out the hard way, here's a sample of many past occurrences:
#1 The Neo Alec Scene
On Neo Alec's web site
around August of '98. There were a few flame wars, which were a lot of fun.
This is where many many members of the neo community, Bonuskun, Billkwando,
Samhain, Gui_Long, nick_th_fury, SNKiller, etc., met & became
friends.
This is also the first place where we noticed this guy claiming to
know EVERYTHING about the 16 bit Neo*Geo system in that section.
The person
was none other than Dion Dakis, running around dubbing himself the ultimate guru
of the Neo*Geo world.
He was seen lying to people, insulting them, and
telling them that all SNK MVS carts produced were also made for AES Home system
as well.
#2 Refugees
In December of '98, more and more people were being kicked from Neo Alec's
board in his attempt to establish control over everything.
One of the older
Yahoo Clubs known as 'Southtown Neo*Geo Land' was more than happy to welcome us
from Alec's board.
Dion and Gui_Long finally confronted each other at this
point, arguing about the way he talked down to people (which he still does).
He sent Gui a threat by E-mail, and with that he ended it..
Dion then
created the club 'Neo*Geo Heaven' in which he told many people that "if you're
so big & bad you'll be at Shodown 99" (a get together for Neo Fans).
Dion threatened many people on both the bbs's, and on the dhp list.
Threatening to deal with anyone that had an issue with him there.
However,
when shodown '99 rolled around, Dion didn't show.
#3 Neo*Geo HELL
Soon after all of this, Dion was caught selling converted carts with fake
inserts and stickers.
We had thought Dion was just an asshole before now, and
were surprised to find out he was a lying thief as well.
He had advertised
that every cart included all the original materials, especially the
manual.
He was caught selling photocopied inserts for Super Dodgeball, Shock
Troopers, and other titles.
The items he had called original were nothing
more than cheap, fake printouts, definitely not from SNK, which he offered for
the "oh so low" price of $900.00 a pop.
So Neo*Geo Hell was opened, somewhat
because of the desire to establish a place to discuss Neo Gaming, but primarily
to inform people about Dion's lies.
#4 The Loser
Dion steps forth once again to prove what scum he is. In a rather stupid
move, he claims that Shock Troopers 2 will not be released on home cart.
Of
course, a short time later, SNK does in fact release the home cart. Faced with
this, Dion tries to publicly inflate his ego, saying SNK did it to "keep him
from having an exclusive home title."
Dion had made his own fake Shock
Troopers 2 cart, US version (complete with fake US sticker), and tried to pass
it off as a "rare" official release that only he had received.
His trickery
was immediately pointed out, so then he tries to save face by hyping his cart
sticker, saying he "wanted to compare it to SNK's to see whose was better."
#5 The Thieves strike again.
Dion's poor business practices start to surface. He tries to purchase the
entire stock of Metal Slug X carts from SNK USA, so he can make "limited edition
cart casings" (meaning the actual plastic PCB casing) that were orange in
color.
This, of course, would give him the ability to ration them out to
whomever he wanted, and charge whatever price he desired, forever claiming they
are "rare" titles.
When his ploy failed, he threw a fit like a child, and
tried to discourage everyone from buying the game, claiming it would not be rare
or worth anything.
This failed as well, and the game sold in droves in Japan
and the US, making it a fairly rare title to have due to its scarcity.
#6 Supersellers
Billkwando discovers around this time that Dion had ripped off Shinichirou
Mukaigashira,
the owner of Supersellers, for about $600.00 worth of Neo
carts. In response,
Shinichiro-san discouraged everyone from dealing with
Dion, outlining what a thief he was.
Some of the older guys on the scene
might remember this memento that proves Dion's guilt:
----------
I know a man called Dion Dakis. The software of NeoGeo has been sold to
him before.
However, since he has doubt which is carrying out the criminal
act, he is taking care not to be concerned.
(The unjust copy, forgery, etc.
of a product package) He has not yet paid the price of the goods purchased from
me about 6 months before. (about $600!!)
It is very disreputable although his
action is seen by news group or mailing list. (There are many grievances in
goods transactions)
His transactions are not recommended.
Thanks.
Super Sellers Group Owner
Shinichirou
Mukaigashira
order.ssg@anet.ne.jp
----------
#7 The Irritating Maze
Dion at this time had made his IM game for AES with which he claimed he had
connections with SNK.
He claimed that SNK USA refused to sell his game for
him and had even tried to have SNK of Japan to force them to have them sell his
game.
He originally also tried to make SNK USA to give him an official
Certificate saying that this was an Official SNK Product.
In an unprecedented move, Alica Barone(The President of SNK USA's
Daughter) came down to Dion's club and stated in front of everyone
that
SNK had NOT endorsed The IM project and Dion had no such claim to say as
much putting Dion in his place.
Dion, being unable to dismiss he claims as a
"jealous fan" instead of debating the issue, Banned her from his club for what
she did.
#8 Adol's Misadventure
Adol (I don't know which of the 2 brothers being referred here seeing as Adol
is actually 2 different people) was at one time ripped off by Dion who sent him
a
Converted Shock Troopers AES cart. When Adol received the game he had
checked that back of the insert to find that Dion had written his name on the
back
of the insert in black permanent marker. In a fit of justified anger
Adol ripped the sticker off the cart and told Dion to set this fake shit
correctly.
Upon Adol sending the cart to get his money back, Dion had claimed
Adol should pay the $400.00 for the sticker he ruined.(Yes Dion was serious
folks)
and in the end Adol got some rip-off compensation for about $100.00. I
don't remember the full details but you can confer with Adol and ask him for a
better explanation.
Before sending it back, Adol had scanned the game to show
it to people, which you can see here:
Now to understand the
significance of this, you must understand that at this time, the vast majority
of Neo fans did not know
of the ability to convert mvs games to home cart
pcb's. So if someone said they had a rare, official limited release, it was easy
to believe the liar.
#9 Mike the Alias
Long time scene member Gui_Long, was ripped off by a Mike Zavala.
Mike
sold Gui a Magical Drop 1 Jamma Board.
After he told Gui that he checked and
found out he had received the money, he replied that he had received it that day
and thus sent the board.
Still waiting to receive the pcb, after all these
years. Mike never made good on either the pcb, or returned the
money.
From many private emails during this time, several people felt
that Mike was actually just a front "alias" used by Dion.
Either way, Mike is
by his own admission a good friend of Dion's.
Scammers run in packs it
seems.
#10 Pre-Neoheaven Territory Scam.
Now at this time, many carts were priced based on rarity of their
territory.
When newbies would look at HomeCart prices, they would typically
request the cheaper language version.
As it's well known they play the
same.
However, there were always a few, that didn't mind paying a little extra for
exactly what they wanted.
These are the fellows this scam fed upon.
When someone would post on the DHP a "looking for" request, Dion would write
them saying "I've got what u need".
As these carts are rare, & these
newbies were already willing to pay higher than normal, often a deal would be
quickly struck.
No problems, till the poor guy received his bootleg
goods.
Expecting to receive a official rare SNK cart, What they in fact would
receive, was the much more common language version, with a color copied insert,
doctored to look like its rarer counterpart.
Receiving the more common
version, that they could have gotten easily, & for allot less
money.
Harder to catch, because the carts were official.
Several people
started questioning openly why their games either came with no manual, (If they
were lucky) the more common territory manual , or just a copied manual.
It
was during this time, That Dions old school cheerleader, Chris Mullins wrote
into his neoFAQ, that SNK often released Xerox copies of manuals , with official
game sales.
Gee, I wonder why.
#11 Dion tries to rip a Mouse. This Mickey's no pushover.
Long time scene member, & ng.com
forum moderator Mouse_Master, had purchased two games from Dion being World
Heroes 2 & Baseball Stars Pro to examine the quality of NGF's print
jobs.
Of course one thing lead to another and Dion being the unprofessional
jackass that he is.
Held MM's games from a dispute between Dion &
Billkwando and as such started ignoring him that MM was forced on Oct 11, 2000
filed a fraud complaint with the IFCC and also with the US Postal
Inspectors.
Two weeks later he hadn't heard any response from NGF on the deal they made
in June of that year.
It was obvious that Dion would not respond even though
they had been updating their website, bidding on auctions on Ebay,
posting to
their Neo Geo list, and they have been in contact with Shawn about his Strikers
1945 Plus cartridge (and also Jeff Kurtz).
Another NGF BS scandal Finally in the end, The State Attorney's Office
from Maryland called Dion at his home and forced and ultimatum to send
Mouse_Master his goods or face criminal charges of Internet fraud.
If
you'd like to see some more details on this occurance, It was talked about on a
neo BBS.
October 6, 2000
October 11, 2000
#12 Billkwando's Blues...
Billkwando being new to the scene had struck a deal with Chris Ray.
Originally at the time, Bill didn't know too much about Chris and as such didn't
judge him because he was friends with Dion.
Originally Bill had an original
Sengoku Cardboard box version which Chris had wanted. Bill agreed to swap the
cardboard box version for a clamshell version of the same game and thus the deal
was struck.
There was a lot of bullshit that went on between but Bill finally
got his game from Chris. It was indeed a copy of Sengoku like he asked only the
insert was fake and to make the insert fit properly inside the case,
Chris
had cut the top of the insert paper with an exacto knife which actually cut some
of the plastic on the top of the case.
Chris's excuse was that he didn't know
Bill had wanted an original insert and tried to play it off as the 'corrected'
ones he did were so much better.
Suffice to say Billkwando never dealt with
Chris again for such an underhanded bullshit scheme.
#13 Shawn Vs the NGF Strikers1945Plus
Originally Shawn had ordered around 8 AES carts from NGF, with Strikers,
Ganryu, Pre-historic Isle 2, Neo Mr.Do, Bust-a-move Again, etc., which was an
estimated $550.00 per cart.
As with NGF customer service it took awhile for
the games to arrive. The only cart that had come in DOA was Strikers. Shawn
understandably sent the Strikers to Jeff Kurtz to see what was wrong.
Upon
Jeff Opening the board he found out that the conversion job that Chris had done
to be the worst mess he had ever seen.|
It should be noted
that Chris Ray was trying to dump the game out of his hands by constantly
telling Shawn that the NGF warranty was Void if anyone else tampered with the
inside of the game.
These pictures illustrate the poor quality, just plain
terrible work done on what NGF describes as one of their "Big" games.
These
images show enough proof that the self proclaimed Zen-Master of the Neo was
nothing more than a hack
There was no way in
hell this game was even functioning when it left Chris Ray's door.
Bad solder
joints, broken leads, and chips half-assed assembled on the board.
Suffice to say Shawn
did finally get compensated but as with all NGF scandals, He had to embarrass
Chris Ray on the forum public to get his money back.
#14 The King of Crump 2000
This version was very limited, & was completely bought out by NGF.
It
was made by SNK & shipped in good faith to them.
Then, upon receipt, they replaced the Insert & Manual cover. Printed with
their URL Logo.
This was noticed in Mikhail's in-depth kof2kus
report as anomalies he couldn't explain till now..
NGF then replaced all
official Insert's, & manual covers with these high quality fakes.
Keeping the real one's for themselves.
Now you understand why they were so adamant, "Call SNK" Cause when you did,
SNK said Yes. Not then knowing what NGF had done.
What they never expected,
was that the gritty little facts would surface.
Of course NGF were constantly on the neo-geo.com forums ripping on people and
telling them to call SNK of Japan and confirm this release.
They then
proceeded to say how ashamed they were of people giving them hell over this when
they were doing this for the fans.
It wasn't until much much later that the
proof finally came out that indeed NGF did have the rights to the U.S.
KoF2K.
How was this discovered? A kof2kus was bought, then shipped to
SNK.
SNK confirmed that the game was theirs, but that the art was not what
they had shipped.
This is sad, just plain sad. I've heard of greed, but never
realized someone would be so mean to their loyal supporters.
#15 I swear it was the Post Office's Fault!!
Back in the day when Gargoyle was new to the scene he bid on a copy of Ninja
Masters that Dion was selling on ebay.
The Auction ended at $335.00 for the
Ninja Masters. This was a standard, fair price at that time for an original
Ninja Masters.
Upon receiving the game Garg found out that Dion had sent him
a conversion with color copied insert & sticker.
No where in Dion's
auction was this game stated as a conversion and as such Garg wanted to send the
game back and get his money back for the fake game.
All he was got was a run
around with Dion who kept trying to offer garg half of what he paid to send it
back.
After posting his dilemma publicly, Dion agreed he would refund Garg's
money. Garg sent the game immediately.
Dion claims he never got the game and
would not refund until he got it.
#16 The Slug keeps rolling on!
Dion Dakis is a master of knowing when games will come out. He has informed
people numerous times that Metal Slug 3 would NEVER be released as an US AES
game, EVER.
Even after it became common knowledge that it was going to be released via
the NeoStore, he completely denied the existence of such a game.
Even up to one month after the release he continued to deny it's existence
until......
Shock of shocks! What's this? Suddenly Dion puts the word out on an "offer"
of his.
He'll buy your "inferior" MS3 AES off you!
The reason for this was so that he could "correct" them
(read: discard all
original -packaging/documentation included with the games and replace them with
"official" NGF versions).
Yea what a deal indeed. Send him your authentic,
authorized SNK insert, & he'll send you a copy of one he made in it's
place
#17 Rare (Fake)Official carts direct from SNK Europe.
Before many fans knew about Dion's selling of fake inserts, He attempted to
hype the value of his goods by telling people they were actually rare carts from
foreign SNK distribution houses.
Need a little proof?
http://lists.dhp.com/neogeo/1999/Jul/2707.html
Ah yes, They will tell you now, that they never said this.
http://lists.dhp.com/neogeo/1999/Aug/1604.html
To bad the truth is archived.
Lies always come back to bite you later
boys.
http://lists.dhp.com/neogeo/1999/Sep/0619.html
http://lists.dhp.com/neogeo/1999/Sep/0323.html
#18 Destroying authentic SNK products
In 2001, NGF started placing stickers in manuals, like this one here.
They also Stamp Official
Inserts, manuals and carton boxes with an Ink stamp.
Thus ruining the
collectability, & the value of the item.
In the pic below, we have a Twinkle Star Sprites Insert.
Before this
was purchased, NGF confirmed that they would not mark or mar the item in
anyway.
Guess this shows what their "word" is worth.
When asked why they
do this, even though their own long time customers hate it, they said it was to
prove the "authenticity" of an item.
Ironic isn't it? That the best liar the
neo scene has ever seen, the fellow that has lied about the origin of inserts to
hype the resale value, has decided to take it upon himself to determine what is
"authentic".
#19 Is there more? & why do people still deal with these guys?
We could go one for hours, this is a small sample of what people have
reported over the years.
Why do people still deal with them?
Some people
do not care. It's that simple.
They feel, "well as long as they've dealt with me in good faith", why should
I care?
Well, I guess we all have different moral values. Many of us do not deal with
known scam artists.
This list is to educate those that do care about who they
buy from, as much as what they get.
.
To those who ignore it, knowing what has happened to others, & still
deal with them.
Even if you don't admit it to yourself, you are endorsing all
of this, & supporting it by your patronage.
You are guilty as well, &
shame on all of you.
It should be noted, that the neo community is very supportive of honest
NeoGeo retailers.
Many of them, such as NCS, MDGames, The
Neo Store, !Arcade!
& many many more are very
appreciated for their hard work. & Support
of the Neo & it's fan's.
Thanks go out to all of them.
NGF Rep Chris Ray Responds
There was an interesting debate over this very guide. You can read
NGF's response to it there.