NGF: Why the hate?

Originally posted by SonGohan:
<strong>Somebody post that NGF bible. I like to read through that thing every now and then. It's incredible some of the shit they've done.</strong><hr></blockquote>

The NGF Bible is currently being moved to a new location to have it hosted. For now if you're bored, Here is the original rough draft before the final one that came in the bible.

This is a true story for you newbies in the Neo Geo world who are just getting into the scene, to help protect you from getting ripped off or worse. There have been many flame wars and bitter arguments over what I'm about to discuss, but not too many people know what has gone on to cause them. I will try to explain as best as I can to help clear up the confusion, to hopefully enlighten you so that you might understand. A lot of this was trimmed down due to the massive amount of words that were exchanged in these instances, but besides that, here is the truth...

#1 Neo Alec

I, Gui_Long, starting hanging out at Neo Alec's web site around August of '98 (my dates may be a little fuzzy, so please bear with me). There were a few flame wars, which were a lot of fun. That's where I met my fellow "Devil" LORD SAMHAIN who was trying to sell me Orochi Blood. The flame wars kept escalating, and we eventually got kicked off the boards. Now, I wasn't honestly paying attention to the "General Discussion" section of Alec's site, and had tended to stick to other parts of Alec's Forum. I had hardly 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. Like I said before, I hardly noticed him...

#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 I finally confronted eachother at this point, arguing how the way he talked down to people (which he still does). He sent me a threat by E-Mail, which I laughed off, and with that he left in a huff. Dion then created the club 'Neo*Geo Heaven' in which he told me that "if you're so big & bad you'll be at Shodown 99" (a get together for Neo Fans). I stated that I wasn't trying to be big and bad, I just generally wanted Dion to stop calling people stupid morons so we could all coexist happily.

#3 DolphinLord

Around January 99, consumed with my anger at Dion, I posted a Flame at SNKILLER'S request. The intent was to back him up over his and Dion's argument, in which Dion was trying to prove to everyone that Samurai Shodown V was coming out in six months. Dolphinlord deleted this post, and soon after, he deleted his entire website. SNKILLER came to me, and asked where the post was. So I went back to the board to look, and when I couldn't get in, I thought I was banned. I got mad at Dolphinlord then, because I was under the impression that he had banned me...I didn't realize he had deleted his site. This created a few nasty sparks between us, which lasted for about 7 months. During that time Dolphinlord opened a new club. I found out later that Neo Alec had sent him an email regarding his site, saying that it was very much like his own. Dolphinlord overreacted, and fearing some sort of legal action, chose to delete his site.

#4 SNK Neo*Geo War Room

This Club, which still exists, was opened for those who want to flame and curse out people such as Dion. Billkwando (The Owner of SouthTown Neo*Geo Land) created it to keep the flames I kept posting off of his board. Dion, despite being active in all the other Neo*Geo clubs, never joined that one. I later acquired leadership of this club as founder, and ended up not using it much at all. Elsewhere at the time, Billkwando was kicked from Neo Alec's board for seemingly no reason whatsoever. I later discovered that Alec thought an edited picture of "Hells Chello" was posted on the board, and Alec thought it was Billkwando's doing. Alec said nothing of his reasons, however, and deleted Billkwando from the board. Billkwando became very angry at Alec, contacted all of his friends that posted, and told them to join a club where they would not get deleted for no reason.

The picture "Hells Chello" was an actual picture of Neo Alec that 'Sleep' had edited to look like a Big-headed Devil with a chello. It was intended to prove a stupid point--that Neo Alec looked 'Evil'. As a result, five people were kicked from the board.

#5 Neo*Geo HELL

Soon after all of this, Dion was caught selling converted carts with fake inserts and stickers. I had thought Dion was just an asshole before now, and was 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.

#6 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 publically 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, U.S. version (complete with fake U.S. sticker), and tried to pass it off as a "rare" official release that only he had recieved. 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."


#7 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 ass-gouging 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 U.S., making it a fairly rare title to have due to its scarcity.

#8 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 I kept that proves Dion's guilt:

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1>LoBO6@prodigy.net As I said before at the TIME it was no more than $170.00.

2>DKD4@aol.com NEVER. From the first day he posted it, it has always been $600+ Like he doesn't talk to me about his prices?

3>Shinichirou Mukaigashira 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

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This conversation was about a Super Dodgeball cart. Dion had told everyone that he was buddies with Shinichirou-San, constantly trying to pretend they were good friends. With the above evidence, he was caught in another lie, and it was proven again that he was a total thief. Lord SAMHAIN later confirmed this as well.

#9 The Irritating Maze

Dion at this time had made his IM game for AES with which he clamined he had conenctions with SNK. He claimed that SNK USA refused to sell his game for him him and had even tried to have SNK give him an official Certificate saying that this was an Official SNK Product. In an unprecendented 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 the high and mighty Ego he is Banned her from his club for what she did.


#10 NeoGeoHell Shuts Down

At this point there were really no more discussion about anything there expect Dion's misdealings. As such Yahoo had valid reason to delete the club account seeing as their policy doesn't allow places where you are allowed to freely flame people. Well not to the degree it had gotten as far as Dion was concerned.

#11 NeoGeo Heaven Payback

Dion's own club had been forced into unlisted mode due to the backlash of flames he recived for having NeoGeoHell shut down. This is turn eventually killed his own club *What few people visited anymore* and thus Dion moves onto greener Neo pastures.

#12 The Lords of SNK

After NeoGeoHell got shut down. Lord Samhain*DSD* created this club to try and bring back the members who were lost when NeoGeoHell got closed down. This club still exists to this day and if a very good information hub on a lot of what Dion & Chris have done to fuck up the scene.

#13 Eternal Flaming NeoGeoHell

This was a new club that appeared but there was no real attendace. This club was deleted not too long after it appeared but,It was reinstated by Yahoo after they had reviewed the content and deemed it could stay.

#14 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 permanet marker. In a fit of justfied 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 ripoff compensation for about $100.00. I don't remember the full details but you can confer with Adol*whichever one it was* and ask him for a better explantion.

Before sending it back, Adol had scanned the game to show it to people with which the picture resides to this day in the SNK Neo*Geo Warroom Club.

#15 Mike the Dyke

I, Gui_Long, was ripped off by a Mike Zavala. This little cocksucker(Who is believed to be Dion and for good reason!)Sold me a Magacial Drop 1 Jamma Board. He lied to me and said he hadn't received the money I sent. Then when I told him that I checked and found out he had received my money, He stupidly replied that he had received it that day and thus sent me my board. Well all this damn time and I still don't have it. This lyar seriously reminded me of Dion as I spoke to him through constants Email.

He began to even copy my CAPS after awhile and lost my trust 100% when he called me a 'Fool' after I bitched at him for me sending my money and never getting the game. Of course I was then told was some sort of American humor for 'Friend' and thus listening to my friends I sent him the last of the money owed for the board. That right there was the biggest fucking mistake I ever made.

Of course that was the last time I ever relaxed when trusting anyone that seems a bit funny. So am I paraniod for no reason now? Nope, Just right & robbed.


#16 Dion Admits the truth!!!

After finally cornering Dion's ass on MANY occasions about his games being converted shit, Dion finally comes out and saying that they are conversions and had the GALL to say that he had admitted this years ago.

#17 DolphinLord's SNK Neo*Geo Domain :

This was a club opened about the same time as the SNK Neo*Geo Warroom club in the style and sense that it was free of censorship and Dion getting away with peddeling his bullshit. Neo*Geo Heaven & NeoAlec's were at the time the 2 main ones followed by Southtown Neo*Geo Club much later.

It should be stated that NeoAlec's and Neo*Geo Heaven were under heavy censorship and thus if you were fucked by Dion you couldn't yell to him about it on his own club for fear of getting banned.

Out of all the Yahoo Clubs, DolphinLord's survived, propsered and is currently unlisted due to the amount of Spam that had ridden back & forth from there and other clubs. The Club is still there and has quite a few people visiting from time to time.


#18 Pre-Neoheaven Territory Scam.

Now at this time, many carts were priced based on rareity 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 didnt mind paying a little xtra
for exactly what they wanted. These are the fellas this scam fed upon.

When somone 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 allready willing to pay higher than normal, often a deal would be quickly struck.

No problems, till the poor fella recieved his bootleg goods. Expecting to recieve a official rare SNK cart, What they in fact would recieve, was the much more common language version,
with a color copied insert, doctered to look like its rarer counterpart.

Recieving the more common version, that they could have gotten easily, & for alot 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.


#19 Dion tries to fuck a mouse.

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 duspute 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 is obvious that Dion would not respond even tho 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 scandel

Finally in the end, MM had the State Attorney's Office from Maryland call Dion at his home and forced an ultimatium to send MM his goods or face criminal charges of internet fraud.

#20 Billkwando's Blues...

Billkwando being new to the scene This was so long ago had already met Dion and decided he was an asshole. He had much later 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.

#21 Shawn vs Strikers1945Plus

This was a deal Shawn had made to get an AES conversion of Strikers1945 plus from Chris Ray. Chris was paid about $1300.00 I think for this conversion job. As with NGF customer service it took awhile for the game to arrive. When Shawn did receive the game it was DoA. Shawn understandably sent the game 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 most crappy 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 warrenty was Void if anyone else tampered with the inside of the game.

There are still pictures of the mess around which I'm sure Jeff K. Still has. These images show enough proof that the self proclaimed Zen-Master of the Neo was nothing more than a hack with bad soder joints, broken leads, and chips half-assed assembled on the board. Chris Ray came to the forums that time and stated that Shawn's cart was not DoA when he shipped but, The proof was there that Chris was full of shit. There was no way in hell this game was even functioning when it left Chris Ray's door. Suffice to say Shawn did finally get compensated but as with all NGF scandels, He had to embrass Chris Ray on the forum public to get his money back.

#22 The King of Crump 2000

Dion & Chris both had showhow aquired the rights to the U.S. KoF 200 AES cart and such decided to brag to everyone about this saying they were now official SNK. Of course Shawn aquired the rights to Metal Slug 2, Sengoku 3 & the King of Fighters 2001. This right here proves that anyone with money can aquire rights to release a title in the U.S. Of course with the NGF KoF 2K cart, They were constantly on Shawn's 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. What they DIDN'T tell you was they had swapped out the original SNK cart stickers, manuals, & insert and replaced it with their 'corrected' inserts. Which of course explains how they were trying so hard to get people to call SNK of Japan because SNK was not aware of this scandel.

There is a lot more on this which isn't being said and I have my suspicions that something else happened but, Without proof as such I can only guess. This to this day has to be the lowest that Dion & Chris have tried to swindle people and should have honestly nailed the coffin shut on people ever wanting to deal with them.


#24 I swear it was the Post Office's Fault!!

Back in the day when Gargoyle was new to the scene, He like myself had never dealt with NGF before so he bidded on a copy of Ninja Masters that Dion was selling on ebay. The Auction ended at $335.00 for the Ninja Masters. Upon reciving the game Garg found out that Dion had sent him a fake converted peice of shit. Nowhere 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. As with Dion goes, He was getting the famous run around with Dion who kept trying to offer garg half of what he paid to send it back.

After huge public pressure, he said he'd refund Garg's money. Of course Garg still being a newbie didn't put delivery confirmation on the game and somehow the post office lost it. Dion thus claimed he never got the game and garg was out of his money forever at Dion's mercy because he couldn't prove that Dion did receive the game.


#25 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 existance of such a game.

Even up TO ONE MONTH AFTER IT WAS RELEASED AND SUCCESSFULLY PURCHASED BY MANY PEOPLE he continued to deny it's existance 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). He was so blatant in this that it was obvious a KoF2K screwjob would be performed on anyone who sold their MS3 cartridge to him.

#26 The Last 'Crumped' Blade

Did you guys hear about The Last Blade 3? It's outstanding! What's this? You never heard of it before? That's probably because THERE IS NO SUCH THING!

You'd never know talking to Dion Dakis though.

November 2000, March 2001, November 2001?

Every few months Dion likes to assure us that this game has been complete for YEARS and will be released very soon! Even going so far as to guarantee it will be on display at major trade/coin-op shows!

As you can tell there is a lot that was edited out from the final version because it was felt that we needed to be impartial. Of course I couldn't give a rat's ass about Dion or Chris seeing as they both live in their magical Neo Worlds but hey, Anything to spread the truth I say.

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They STEAL,Vandalize authentic Neo Geo merchandise by swapping original US inserts for "home jobs". They rubber ink stamp the backs of original Jap inserts. The place nasty lil gooey stickers on the seams of your cartridge and in your game manual along with more rubber stamping..
<hr></blockquote>

They are vandals... <hr></blockquote>
How the hell is modifying your own property vandalism??? They own the carts, so they can do whatever they want with them, whether or not it agrees with your ideals.

From what I experienced, NGF is just fine in person. I have not dealt with them online, so I can't comment on that.

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Originally posted by Atariguy:
<strong>
How the hell is modifying your own property vandalism??? They own the carts, so they can do whatever they want with them, whether or not it agrees with your ideals.<hr></blockquote>

It's not the point that they alter products young man, It's the issue of them doing this and not telling people they do this.

A lot of this stems from the issue that their honesty with people in this case is severly lacking and thus people are buying products from them under the false impression it's an original product.

Of course they use the words NGF Official now but of course they are still nothing more than homebrew products if they add, tamper or alter any of these original SNK products in anyway.

From what I experienced, NGF is just fine in person. I have not dealt with them online, so I can't comment on that.</strong><hr></blockquote>

And as Billkwando told you before Dion cannot afford not act nice because they have burned so many online with their schemes. As far as not dealing with them online, I'm glad you did add that. It shows you're catching on.

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: BonusKun ]</p>

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Originally posted by Atariguy:
<strong>
How the hell is modifying your own property vandalism??? They own the carts, so they can do whatever they want with them, whether or not it agrees with your ideals.

From what I experienced, NGF is just fine in person. I have not dealt with them online, so I can't comment on that.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Read here youngster....regardless of how you feel about NGF,this "awareness campaign" is just helping people who wish to purchase Neo Geo AES games in Very Good untampered/unaltered condition.
Those of us that speak out against NGF are not preventing others from doing business with NGF,it is NGF that is driving away their customers with the vandalism,counterfeiting and bootlegging.
The PROOF lies with the merchandise they sell...
Remember when Shawn sold some AES carts without inspecting the manuals? Do you remmeber the reaction of that customer who received their brand new cartridge with a NGF "nasty lil sticker"
placed in their brand new manual??
Shawn did'nt know about these practices because NGF failed to inform him.
the customer went ballistic until Shawn swiftly handled the situation.
AtariGuy,you are one of a few who had (1) good deal with NGF...To this I say great but don't get upset @ the TRUTH because the PROOF is plastered all over their merchandise.
Is that so hard to understand young man?
-BB
<img src="graemlins/spock.gif" border="0" alt="[Spock]" />

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