The unmoderated NEO GEO thread

Pannolino would I prefer a CD-R? No

But if the only official recourse was CD-R, then I see no reson to leave CD-R off the official list.

If people then didn't want to buy it for whatever reason it is then their choice, but it shouldn't be their choice to say it is unofficial when the rights are in place just because the medium is different - that is just daft and the same applies to NGF freaked items too.

 

do you only concern about kof 2k2?
If so .. i have no doubt it should be included in the list,
there's a logic in your words, of course.

for the rest of catalogue, being game released officially by SNK itself i don't see the reason to include the doubled NGF release.

 

NGF distributor box
Our titles also have the NGF distributor box on the back of the inserts. It clearly states the game is made available with exclusive agreements between snk and NeoGeoFreak.

Guilemot home printed black/white manuals(not full color) with their name and logo on the back. Those should also still be considered official, but listed as a different counrty/language version.(my opinion)

Our option was only on providing genre corrected inserts for the games that needed them. Most of the fighting games needed no correction, so those were left as is. All games did include the NGF distributor/warranty sticker on the side. Those could easily be removed if the person didn't care for any type of warranty or proof of origin.

KoF2000
The KoF2000 came to use, as is, directly from snk-japan. It was a special commission that NeoGeoFreak ordered and snk-japan included our NGF distributor box on the back of the insert and manual.

We wanted the "NGF" on the spine and the "NGF Global" logo on the front, but snk didn't agree. If we would have been involved or printed the insert ourselves (as people try to claim), those extra NGF logos would have been present. (logos can be seen on all our mass release titles)

Mass release titles
Those were only for our official mass release titles of:
Bang Bead, Bust-a-Move, Diggerman, Irritating Maze, ZedBlade, and Zupapa.

At the time after KoF2000, snk-japan and aruze were no longer going to produce any more aes titles. Aruze/snk-japan granted us authorization for release of those titles, but at our own expense for production. Those we had a community collaboration on those projects. (playmore later purchased the IP rights and restarted aes/mvs pproduction)

Variety inserts
Originally we had plans to provide NGF genre correct inserts for all the variety games, but as many people in the USA didn't care to collect the japanese language variety games and the demand was low, we never followed through with that idea. Those inserts would have had the exact same look as all the other inserts, but with a pink variety genre stripe.

wheelaa, you're actually correct. For the most part, we only offered the corrected inserts so the games would look aesthetically pleasing when all lined up on a shelf. We didn't change the sticker or manual covers as we felt that was a minor detail. Also, some people requested the game come with both the original insert and the genre correct insert. But we also provided the genre correct inserts sold individually.

I guess you can say a lot was inconsistent, but we did try our best to offer inserts that looked good when lined up together.

Some games did have genre correct english stickers, and those are of extreme high quality. Super glossy and very, very nice looking.
.

 

Quelle surprise.

 

The list has provision for MVS, AES, Japanese and English releases. I see no reason for the NGF freaked english titles to be excluded when other english titles are present.

If people just want non-freaked tems, they should stick to the Japanese releases only - it should be that simple.

 

Not really a surprise as snk did allow for placement of the snk/NGF agreement backbox. Having our NGF call letters and NGF Global logo also included was worth a shot. It's always better to ask and try to get as much as you can, rather than always wonder what could have been.

Had we not asked for the exclusive english release of KoF2000, snk may have stopped all future production all together. snk originally said that the japanese KoF2000 was to be the last title released. After playmore purchased snk's IPs, and they saw the demand was still active, they decided to continue.

No one will truly ever know what would have happened if aruze didn't sell the snk IP brand to playmore. Aruze/snk were exiting the video game market and were only going to concentrate on slot and pachinko machines.
.

 

If as you say KOF2000 was a special commission then SNK/Aruze would have been acting unethically and quite possibly even illegally by refusing you the right to have your name on the cover and spine. To all intents and purposes the game was yours and not theirs so should have been packaged however you saw fit and not them so it's very strange that your request was turned down.

Taken from the proto thread:

Well if it indeed was a genuine release who did the printing? If it was NGF and you had all the rights that you said you had you could have printed whatever you wanted on the insert and not had to worry about comebacks or repercussions.

The thing is we'll never know the truth. You put a Japanese KOF2000 cart in a USA or Euro machine and voila, it's in English, put the USA cart in an NTSC_J machine and the ingame language will automatically default to Japanese. The only thing that differentiates an 'ulta rare' USA cart from its extra common JPN counterpart is the sleeve and manual. You're paying ridiculous sums of money for bits of paper, not games, paper.

 

Very true.
Same can be said for all english games such as kizuna encounter, metal slug, ninja master's, double dragon, real bout, real bout special, MotW, KoF2000.

Collectors world-wide seem to prefer, and thus drive up the costs of the english releases. This happens not just in the neogeo market, but in the majority of the video game markets as well.

Certain Japanese and Russian versions of Beatles and Elvis albums (not all) are worth much more than their American released versions. It all depends on how badly a collector wants something that ultimately determines price.











.

 

Regarding the Guillemot versions, I want to clarify, at least for the games from such distributor I own:

- Guillemot includes its black and white manual, is true, BUT it includes too the ORIGINAL and unaltered game manual.

- Guillemot includes a sticker with the game argument translation to French stickered in the box... but it si stickered in the transparent plastic of the box, so the original insert is unaltered.

I don't know if this works for all Guillemot distributed AES games, but at least it is true for the games I own.


Dion, I would like to ask you:

- Why only correct inserts to English, and not too the stickers and manuals?

- When started and ended your SNK distribution rights? I ask this because I've read from you here you were given rights from Aruze, and this would mean rights would start at least from 2000, and not before.

- Also, here you say the KOF2000 English manuals, stickers and inserts were sent printed directly from SNK Japan, but I seem to recall reading here that you had the files and comissioned to a USA company to print them. Is 100% sure all were sent printed from Japan?

 

Hehe, I don't mind wheelaa, sig away. ^_^

 

Savings
Cost savings. Plus since the cartridge and manuals were placed inside the box, we felt the insert was more important for the genre stripes as so people could display the games in genre order.

1996-1997
NeoGeoFreak distribution rights started around 1996-1997 with snk.
We were still working with snk when Aruze became their parent.
When Aruze/snk were to stop production of future aes/mvs releases, they granted us exclusive rights for the mass release titles Bang Bead, Diggerman, Irritating Maze, Zupapa, etc...

We worked closely with snk-japan during the Aruze years. We eventually got to meet Aruze chief international director and were invited as guests to speak on neogeo games at the Aruze booth at the Tokyo Game Show 2001. Those were great times.



Aruze later sold the complete IP rights to playmore. At that point we ended our tenure involving distribution of neogeo aes software.

You're probably mistaken for the times we did the mass release of Zupapa and other titles. We created a web page that stated the inserts, manuals, stickers were all printed in the USA.

As I stated plenty of times before, KoF2000 was direct from snk. If we had printed them locally, our NGF call letters would be placed on the spine and our "NGF Global" logo would have graced the front of the insert, as all our mass release titles show.

KoF2000: snk/ngf agreement backbox



Bang Bead: agreement backbox, call letters, global logo (upper corner insert/manual)


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IMO it is more than the paper, but the legal issue too.

Sony for example had a fit when Lik Sang etc were selling Japanese products to the worldwide market. I didn't like Sony's WTFPWN response, but there is some method to their madness.

Only a small minority would have bought the Japanese releases and many that did would buy their regional releases too, plus the majority of customers will buy whatver shit is shovelled into their terriritory regardless, so the perceived revenue issues should be a non issue as from many customers Sony still got paid once but sometimes paid twice. I accept due to the PSP being region free it may have had a neglible impact on regional sales. it shouldn't have negatively affected overall worldwide monetary gain, but in fact increase their earnings.

What is an issue though is that Lik Sang were redistributing without consent or rights, or even without certification that the items passed regional health and safety laws. Now if a lone person decides to sell something from their own personal collection that is frowned upon but less of an issue. When a distributor does it en masse it becomes a legally actionable position worthy of attention. Sony could overlook this as they got paid once sometimes twice, but they did not grant permission to do so thus it is their right to kick up a fuss of they wished, so they did.

You did yourself a small disservice Dion by looking at it from a material aspect only. IMO by the same logic, you're not just paying for the paper, when you buy an NGF freaked title with the quality issues set aside, you're paying for the rights to own an officially distributed product for your territory too, not just another bootleg.

 

This is completely true: you pay for "the paper", but above that, you're paying for an OFFICIALLY DISTRIBUTED PRODUCT.

First, thank you very much for answering those questions, Dion.

What I would like to ask too is why if your rights are still "alive", why don't simply make joint ventures granting rights through you with other partners?

If Atomikwave can make money from conversions, if Neoconception can make money from games and pay Visco its part, if NG-Dev Team can make some money from making a game from scratch-designing new MVS boards-marketing and selling the games... it sure you can obtain some money in a joint venture in which you could provide rights, art files, etc., for reediting AES games as English KOF2000 or others people would be happy to own for an affordable price.

Alas, doing that, is what I would call really loving the Neo.

 

We've discussed this with a few people, but there really isn't a great deal of money to be made. Also there was such a bad propaganda campaign about NGF spread by ng.com, that many people were feared being stigmatized.

You guys really believe that story on visco and neoconception?
When NGF said we have righgts, people everywhere didn't believe and they demanded to see some proof. Playmore posted on their web site and some people still find it hard to believe. Along comes one guy and posts he received some rights and people believe? LMAO!!....

Anyway.....NGF was contacted by NeoConception. Him and I have chatted many, many times and we go very far back together. I sold him many neogeo games and NGF inserts back in the late 1999/2000. He had a nice collection. He's a nice guy. He's kool with me, I'm kool with him.

He too was worried about the fans reaction if we provided him with the insert. But alas, we didn't have any art, so he had his friend create something. I think he is doing fine and I love to see people supporting the neogeo.

Written consent
But also, there are a few games that we don't have repackaging rights. Plus, we can not legally sell or transfer our rights without written permission from playmore.
.

 

Genre line up
Older photo of my collection, circa spring 2000. Lined up by genre, then alphabetical.
All NGF genre correct inserts are officially authorized and licensed by snk.

Fighting(red)
(KoF99, MotW, Last Blade 2 were the newest fighters)


Shooting(blue) and Action(orange) (SlugX was the newest action game)


Sports(green), Racing(grey), Puzzle(yellow)


Puzzle and Japanese only variety games


If you look closely you'll see Ironclad and Fun Fun Brothers.
.

 

is the watermark saying "ruined by Dion Dakis"'?

 

- I, as other people did, have contacted personally Visco, and Visco told me that it was true and they have given rights for Bang2Busters.

Even with that, Neoconception told me that Visco was going to publish the game release at his web, or even if Visco didn't do that, he will show the contract to given proof of that: at least, this is what he told me, and truly I expect this to be done, as promised.

Neoconception is Neoayato, by the way?

- Regarding making money, life is not all about money, and even making little money is good if it involves little effort, but you make happy a lot of people... it would be a spiritual profit.

- Regarding the Playmore press release, it recognizes those titles were authorized with THE CORRECTED ENGLISH INSERTS (no sticker, manual, or conversion explicity named there, although in the list are showed some MVS only games), BUT this does not mean the starting date of that right.

I mean, I've read Alicia Barone denied you had any rights while SNK USA was going on; as no documentary proof is shown this is false, I would continue believing is Aruze who gave you rights (starting year 2000), so all before that date would be not official, and all manufactured after that date would be official.

Dion, could you show the contract giving you distribution rights to end this eternal doubt about when rights started, and what they granted?

 

Well, I believe my last questions regarding rights has been answered in the other thread through a more general question, so thanks for it.

Also, I believe all questions in a forum are legitimated, as long as they are asked in a polite manner.

 

I don't mean to bang on about your release of KOF2000 but one thing still doesn't make sense. If as you say you asked SNK/Aruze to allow you to have your logo's on the packaging and they said no, why then didn't you just recreate your own insert once you took delivery of your specially commissioned consignment of 100 carts? After all, according to you you had the rights to reproduce any art so surely you'd be well within the terms of the contract you had to create another sleeve that highlighted your involvement in its release like you have done on dozens of others of their titles and your own 6 mass released titles? Your name appears on the back of the manual, was this manual created by you or SNK? If it was SNK it seems rather churlish on their part to namecheck you on the booklet but not the sleeve. It just doesn't weigh up.

Also, interestingly all the carts you've got in the above photo's may be genre correct but none of them have the NGF logo on the spines that your customers had, they just say SNK or SNK ADK.

 

I think part of your issue can be explained consumed (I left you feedback by the way - ta!)

NGF did 3 functions: import, distribute and publish.

The imported titles, well they didn't get shit for that unless they did their own inserts, which they had the right to do for many titles so they freaked em, as is an importer's right.

Distributing, well all they got for that was their name in a box on the back, as is a distributors right.

As for publishing their mass release titles, they then got their name on the front and the spine too, as is a publisher's right.

It seems pretty logical thinking about it this way as it does make sense when compared with other establishments doing these functions too, though most firms appear to do one or the other, not the whole shebang.